I have always been a frontbencher. I was so short that the front seat was logically the best place for me to sit in class. Being in front ensured that I could see the teacher and the board clearly, and that tall people like Rilla wouldn't block my line of sight in class.
The world appeared perfectly crisp to me. And glasses? That "blind people's aid" never ever crossed my faintest imagination.
Well, that was until CSCD 101, my first class at the University of Ghana. As I sat in the front seat of JQB 19, I couldn't believe my eyes - literally and figuratively. What do they mean they can't see what's on the slides? What then is their job? Are they blind? Can't they see how others are seeing clearly from the back??
Unbelievable.
Clinical blindness wasn't a label I ever considered for myself. I had lived my life with a blurry vision, assuming that was the standard. I was more or less like a fish unaware of the water within which it swims in.
This situation reminds me of a similar one Michele Obama faced as recorded in her book "Becoming". Young Michelle was learning to play the piano so she practiced diligently on an old one her aunt owned. However, this piano had a chipped key, the "Middle C", and this was what Michele used as her anchor.
For people who don't play the piano, an anchor key" is a specific key used as a reference point for hand positioning. So it's where you place your fingers for easy movement. Just like on the computer keyboard, where you have your anchor keys being *ASDF* *JKL;* and the space bar.
Typically, this is a central key like Middle C, where Michele's Aunty's piano had a chip. And this makes sense because the moment Michelle approaches the piano, she knows that finding the chip means finding where to place her fingers.
Imagine her horror then, when she had to perform on a grand stage and was presented with a faultless piano. The absence of the chip on that piano threw her off balance and rendered her practised routine useless.
Like Michelle and her piano, I had been living with a fatal flaw I knew nothing about – my undiagnosed vision impairment. JQB 19 was my grand piano moment.
Sometimes, when we practice with a flaw for so long, the flaw becomes normal, ingrained in our perception of the world. We adapt, we compensate, and it becomes invisible, even comfortable. But then, like Michelle at the piano, or me at JQB 19, life happens and throws us into uncharted territory.
It may be a new environment, a different perspective, or a reality check. The flaw, once manageable, becomes a glaring obstacle.
I've been thinking of this concept concerning what will happen when we're met with the reality of the change we so desire. We've grown up normalising so much crap that it may be a challenge when we're presented with the right way of doing things.
For example, are we ready to get everywhere on time? To have to stand in queues without the need for protocol? To be denied jobs when we're not qualified, even though our father is the MD? To use the overheads instead of jumping over the barriers at Madina to cross the road? To meet the Troski at the correct bus stop and not wherever it can stop?
Well, may we, on this journey, find the grace to adapt to the normal when we get the opportunity to. Because sometimes, the normal, once elusive, can be painful and confusing to accept.
It may take a jolt, a grand piano, or a JQB 19 moment, to shake us from our flawed perception. But the clarity we'll gain on the other side will be worth it.
Africa will prosper. Yes, we will. We shall. We must. In this decade, not beyond.
Good morning Ghana and the nations of the world!
