Si ni mimi naku show!
For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. They will reject the truth and chase after myths. 2 Timothy 4:3-4.
Most of us are familiar with optical illusions. These illusions play tricks on our vision and make our brain think that something is there when in reality there is nothing. We live in a three-dimensional world. Everything we see and visualise is a result of depth, shading, lighting and position of the object.
Hence our brain is conditioned that way. Therefore, when we see a two-dimensional image, our brain does not respond in the same way. It gets fooled and we visualise the images in various ways.
An example of an optical illusion is the Rubin’s vase. At first glance, you can either see a vase or two faces looking at each other. Psychologists posit that what you see first will majorly decide your personality.
If you see a vase first, you are analytical and logical, making you a great problem solver. Conversely, if you see a face first, it means that you exhibit a more intuitive and creative cognitive approach making you a great innovator and creative thinker.
Did you know that your ears can be tricked just as easily as your eyes? Your human brain thinks that it can hear something that is either not there or exists in a very different form to how it is perceived.
In the TV series The Irrational, Prof Alec Mercer takes his class through an auditory illusion session. He projects the words – that is embarrassing - on a screen. Then he plays an audio of people chanting and after the fourth chant, he asks the class to write down what they heard. A hundred per cent of the class types – that is embarrassing.
The professor repeats this exercise again, only this time, he projects different phrases for the class to see. The phrases are - that isn’t my receipt; lactates in pharmacy; baptism piracy; Bart Simpson bouncing; am chasing martian.
The class is perplexed. They cannot conceive how the first chant – that is embarrassing – can sound exactly like all the other different phrases. The professor explains that our ears take in electrical signals which our brains interpret based on our expectations.
In 2 Timothy 4:3-4, the Apostle Paul was forewarning us on the auditory illusion. He was telling us that a time will come when we will only want to hear what is conformable to our wishes and feelings.
This week, the aftermath of our itching ears was witnessed with the Portland land demolitions. The demolitions of more than 50 residences, including religious sanctuaries began after a High Court in Machakos ruled that the East African Portland Cement was the legitimate owner of the land in question after some claimants failed to produce legitimate proof of ownership.
They said all they had was a share certificate of membership. Elsewhere, a clip circulating on social media shows a crowd of people attentively listening to someone tell them that proof of ownership of land is not a title deed which is a mere paper, but a structure, any structure he emphasises, constructed by the ‘owner’ on the land. He went ahead to threaten them that any land that did not have a structure would be repossessed.
This is the classic case of Si ni mimi naku show!
As far back as the year 2015, East African Portland Cement warned unsuspecting buyers that the land in question was not for sale. They went ahead and even erected very huge Buyer Beware billboards along the Mombasa highway transmitting the same message.
In addition, the then Machakos Governor Alfred Mutua under which the Portland land falls, held a press conference raising the alarm on the unprocedural sale of this land. He emphasised that the land was the property of Portland Cement factory, saying that no lease had expired and that upon expiration of any lease, the land would revert to government.
The then governor directed that all those that had occupied the land should vacate and consider themselves to have been conned because the land was never for sale, and that any structures constructed on this land were illegal, including fencing.
Mutua even went further to write a detailed letter to the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission asking them to investigate the illegal grabbing and sale of this land. He implored the anti-graft agency to probe some of the elected leaders alleged to have been involved in the attempted grabbing.
This essentially debunked the Si ni mimi naku show! duper who was misguiding the crowd to put up any structure as proof of land ownership.
Subsequently as is characteristic of us, we took to social and legacy media to seek sympathy while castigating the state of being insensitive to the plight of wasted investment and homelessness the demolitions created.
Begs the question, why are we so gullible even when the evidence is staring us in the face?
A study conducted in 2006 in the University of Leicester found that people who have suffered life’s hard knocks while growing up tend to be more gullible than those who have been more sheltered. Rather than toughening up individuals, adverse experiences in childhood and adolescence meant that these people were more vulnerable to being misled.
They become less trusting of their own judgement and take on another person’s view, especially if that other person is one in a position of authority. The hard knocks cause them to have a mindset that they are no good and nothing they do is ever good enough. They are more inclined to believe false information. They are easily suggestible and often succumb to peer pressure more readily.
I submit that gullibility causes us to have itching ears which in turn leads to auditory illusion. We hear what we want to hear not what we need to hear.
Finally, my unsolicited advice is to the Portland demolition victims. Volenti non fit injuria. To a willing person, injury is not done. This is a common law doctrine which states that if someone willingly places themselves in a position where harm might result, knowing that some degree of harm might result, they are not to bring a claim against the other party in tort or delict.
You were willing victims. You opted for auditory illusion and ignored the warnings. You paid for, and constructed on land that you had no legal proof of ownership. You cannot now seek sympathy and castigate the state for your gullibility.
Because an illusion is an illusion. Reality always exists despite the façade - Kasie Wes