Opinion
The Back Metaphor
By Dr jalarth Uche Opara
Just ask your back what it sees and hears, and it will tell you the most unpleasant things things that would make one’s ears tingle.
If only the back could see, hear, and talk, those we consider our very best of friends may, after all, turn out to be the very fly in our ointment.
We live in a world where many run with the hare while chasing with the hound. They smile at you with a pleasant mien in front but sneer at you behind your back. They praise and flatter you in front, but ridicule you at the back. Their hands are raised in salute before you, while those same hands are spread in disdain behind you.
Ask your back what it sees and hears from those whose commendations and thumbs-up your face enjoys.
What your front hears and sees about you is not, most times, your true image before people. Rather, what your back sees and hears may reveal the reality. Your face encounters their performance; your back encounters their true disposition.
Many who display fine gestures of geniality in front may be the bad guys behind your back. Some people applaud your achievements in your presence but diminish them in your absence. Some call you a friend when you are within hearing distance, but question your character when you are gone.
Perhaps, that is why the back remains one of the most vulnerable parts of the human body. You cannot see it completely by yourself. You need another person or a mirror to reveal it to you. In much the same way, there are things happening behind us, conversations, opinions, betrayals, and even loyalty that we may never know unless they are revealed.
But we must also be careful not to become paranoid or suspicious of everyone around us. Not everyone who speaks in our absence is an enemy, and not every criticism is betrayal. Genuine friends may correct us behind our backs just as honestly as they correct us to our faces. The real issue is not whether people talk about us when we are absent; the question is what they say, why they say it, and whether they can say the same thing when we are present.
Assess nobody merely by what they say or display before you; rather, pay attention to the consistency between their front and their back , their words in your presence and their words in your absence.
Sometimes, your face knows who smiles at you, but only your back would know who truly stands with you.
And if only the back could see, hear, and talk, perhaps many relationships would never remain the same. What is said before one doesn’t really matter,but what is said at the back does. Front conversation about you may be a cosmetic display, but any conversation about you at your back is never a cosmetic display but the real x- ray of who they discussants are to you. If a three second clip of what was said about you at your back is played, your impression about so many people would change.
Jarlath Uche Opara
jarlathuche@gmail.com