Tuesday 5 February 2013

The Mask Of Criticism


It was a warm Tuesday afternoon, in the summer of 2006, and I was a high school student in my junior year, in Gray's international College, which was located on the outskirts of Kaduna state, Nigeria. This for me was a special day! First of all because it was about the third period and we were supposed to have a chemistry class, but somehow the instructor didnt show up.(dont judge me, chemistry was not my thing!). His absence, provided room for an experience that made this day even more special; an experience that will forever change my life.

At this stage in my life in high school, I was very mouthy! I was one of those mischievous folks who made fun of any and every body. I was, to say the least, a vocal terrorist, throwing bombs on everything. Interestingly, most people thought of me as good company, except of course, you were the one being attacked. I was funny( still am) and mischievous( still am, although much repressed)

Being that kind of guy in a class where the instructor was missing, I started off a discussion with a couple of guys. We talked about a lot of stuff and finally about movies. This was a great day! We had so much fun and I would occasionally point out people's grammatical errors and make a huge deal out of it. It was full of laughter and noise. 

We went on talking about movies during this "free period", when suddenly a friend of mine mentioned that on a previous trip to the United States, he went to a Cinema where he saw a movie using a pair of glasses. As soon as he said this, there was such silence in the class, you could hear if the cells in your body were mutating. The whole class was like "What?" We all turned to him, and then everyone turned to me with eager expectation, wondering just how I would attack this "liar"

I began laughing so hard, everyone joined in. To all of us, this was strange. Why would you need glasses to watch a movie. We were convinced he was lying and so we launched a mass attack at him. He tried so hard to convince us he wasn't lying, but we were too many for him. My laughter alone was loud enough to discourage him. We laughed so hard, made fun of him and as you'd imagine, I was at the forefront of this. Over the next few days, I didn't let this bloke rest. Even when everyone had given it a rest, there was one who wouldn't - Daniel Addo!

Fast forward a couple of months, the school term was over and I was now home with my family watching tv. Quite unlike me, I tuned to the discovery channel and they were discussing the development of so-called 3D glasses over a couple of years. They discussed how for years, these glasses have been undergoing development and how various test have been carried out on them in an attempt to improve them. At this point, to me, it was just a new pair of glasses as nothing had been said about it being used for movies.

Suddenly, I heard them say, "These glasses will totally transform the movie experience, allowing us to see movies in an entirely new dimension." I was like "Hold up!! Oh my goodness, he wasn't lying!... It's true!" It turned out these glasses had been in existence for ages and only gained peculiar success in the 2000's as did most of technology. I felt so foolish and slightly stupid for laughing at my friend in school. We made him feel stupid when in reality, we were just ignorant!

Fast forward a couple of years, and I myself was for the first time putting on 3D glasses to see a movie! I can't explain the feeling I had...I wished I could rewind to that day and react differently. I didn't enjoy that movie much because I went into deep thought. I sat there, analyzing the whole situation in my classroom and this is what I learnt:

We humans often use criticism as a mask for ignorance. We often make fun of things we don't understand. When we are ignorant of something, rather than research, we criticise. We use criticism to avoid saying, " I don't know." In my class, because we had never heard of 3D glasses, we just assumed it was a lie...when it turns out we were just ignorant! Never conclude about things you don't understand!

 Before you criticise, research! Have all the facts about a matter before you open up your mouth to laugh it off. Constructive criticism can only come from the well informed.

Ain't it amazing the lessons that a missing chemistry instructor can inspire :p

Daniel Addo
twitter: @pastordanaddo


9 comments:

  1. hahahaha.. mehn thank God our friends aren't here now to laugh back. something like this happened to me before. :p

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  2. Lmao danny!!!!! So U!!!ss3B what an experience,I wouldn't trade that for the world!

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  3. Hahaaaha.....I get to laugh @u all now. U guys thought I was lying about those stuff....welcome to the future

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  4. write more please, love them both!

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  5. lovely story and great message..i went to Grays too :)

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  6. Having be a perpetual victim of mockery/criticism, i must say many of ma friends are having this feeling and the aftermath is Pride, i think you should write about the pride to apologize and sometimes end up lying that you actually knew all along.

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