The Ripple Effect.

‘The Ripple Effect’

Greetings Mortals;

My childhood is filled with a lot of holes- repressed memories and things I actually cannot remember. Maybe I was used for an experiment or maybe time indeed is a figment of our imagination.

Regardless, one of my most profound and brightest memory is; secondary school, 1-week midterm break. Aunty came to pick me up from the house, was gonna spend the weekend at hers then she’ll take me to school for resumption on Sunday. A few hundred meters from the house gate and I realized I forgot an assignment I completed, printed and spiral-bound. Wrestled with the prospect of making my aunt turn around or probably getting flogged and derided in school for having a whole week and not completing my assignment for a few more meters before I caved and told her.

 She turned back, we got the assignment, my eyes lit up at how I’ll be praised for my awesome assignment and *boom*. Accident. Right at Rumuomasi-linking Airforce, someone brushed my aunt’s car and sped off, acting like nothing happened. My aunt was bewildered, guilt welled up inside of me and before I knew it, we were on a high-speed chase.

 Aunt eventually caught up with him around Rumuola axis (her green Honda civic was always a beast), blocked him off and parked. Came out of the car, ignored the building traffic behind us, popped the trunk, grabbed a pair of shears and went H.A.M on his car. Weirdly enough, that’s where my memory ends.

The ripple effect of forgetting my assignment/not speaking up early.

Some months ago, I was reading a thread on twitter where a woman postulated that parents should endeavor to personally pick their kids more, instead of sending the driver or help. While I agreed with the intent, I scrolled past. Few days later, I saw a quoted tweet where a man was replying to the tweet saying he will cancel all his plans for the next day, just to make sure he picks his daughter up himself.

I couldn’t help but let my mind wander; during its vagabonding, I imagined a young man who, having secured the meeting, had leveraged all he had, prepared endlessly for the day, only for his chance to be shattered because someone read a thread on Twitter and deciding to put the theory to test.

The man later came to tweet (yes, I earnestly followed the thread) how his daughter was elated. I’m glad she was glad, but at what cost?

This is my problem with the ripple effect- the unknowns (I’ve always had a problem with unknowns, probability and uncertainties. For a basic carbon-based life-form, I have a lot of guts for someone who doesn’t even understand the universe he currently inhabits.) The thought that every action or inaction has an untold, unforeseen repercussion (The law of unintended consequences) is scary. It’s neither good nor bad, just there, unknown and we live our lives oblivious to it.

Everyone reading this has come across such moments; near-death experience, accident, injury, ‘na me fuck up’/ “had I known” moment etc. when if an action or inaction had taken a minute longer or been delayed a minute, when if someone had been quicker or slower, if the universe had aligned faster or mother nature had taken her time, something wouldn’t have happened or, wouldn’t have happened that way.

We have scars, marks, memories to back up those times, but that are for the ones we know. What about the ones we don’t? the ones we had no control over? Yesterday I witnessed a friend confess how in primary school she falsely-admitted to a boy ‘touching’ her because she was being beaten and force-fed ‘confession’. She admitted, so it’d all end and she got a beating for it. Who knows how it went for him?

The ripple-effect has far-reaching consequences, our favorite superheroes all have an origin story and most of the darkest of them are usually victims of actions or inactions they had no control over.

SPOILERRR!!!!! The story of Bruce Wayne (Batman) comes to mind. SPOILERRRRRR!!!!!!

One more (recent) memory and we share The Grace;

December 2018, I was supposed to have left school finally, with my MSc.

I finished the learning part of college in 2014, went on (compulsory, stressful and ultimately pointless) IT for 6 months, wrote my final exams and immediately after, went on Gulliver’s Travel-esque holiday. I visited different states, flew, swam, dove, dropped, climbed… I basically did it all. Fast-forward to 2015; went back to Kuala Lumpur, submitted passport for visa-renewal and was basically chopping life, touring uni’s, seeking for the one that suited my fancy and in close proximity to friends’.

Visa never got renewed. Never went to Uni. Never got that MSc.

Some Nigerians somewhere had used their student visa to engage in illicit activities, prompting the country’s hierarchy to decide to limit ‘certain’ peoples’ student visas. Unfortunately (for me), I was part of the select few.

They saw they had renewed my visa twice before, and started questioning what I needed a third visa for. My school put up a good fight, my dad went ballistic in Nigeria and wrote countlessly to the high commission, but alas, here I am, 5 years later, doing the writing equivalent of selling wigs.

This ought to be tagged as a cross between ‘Tomorrow’ and other fairy tales & The Ripple Effect.

Now, with this pandemic ravaging the earth, our actions and inactions are probably more nuanced. You could be the reason someone stays home, goes out, infects someone else, gets infected, dies.

Stay home, wash your hands, eat well, share this post and more importantly- think more before you act or do not. Even if there will be more far-reaching consequences than we can fathom.

Love and light.