The Pretense of an Average Human Being

By Dr jalarth Uche Opara

Recently, I found myself in the news for a very unfortunate and unsettling reason. Bloggers spun countless narratives around the incident.

Text messages and WhatsApp messages poured in, asking what had happened. Yet, as I read through many of those messages, one thought persisted in my mind: they did not mean well.

Beneath the soothing words of consolation, I sensed mockery. Behind the expressions of sympathy, I perceived insincerity. Their concern appeared superficial, their motives questionable.

I could almost see hearts filled with resentment and hidden satisfaction, wrapped in sweet and comforting language.

At that moment, the old saying that “there is no art to read the mind’s construction on the face” seemed untrue. Human intentions were written clearly enough for anyone willing to observe.

What made the situation even more striking was that only a few months earlier, I had been publicly honoured and recognised for a sterling achievement.

The award was featured in newspapers and circulated widely on social media. Yet many of these same people remained silent. Not a phone call. Not a congratulatory message. Not even a brief acknowledgment.
They saw the publications. They saw the celebrations. They saw the commendations.

But their keyboards suddenly became faulty and their dialing fingers paralysed.

Human nature often reveals a troubling contradiction. Many people are quicker to sympathise than to celebrate.

They are more willing to contribute to a burial than to support an aspiring entrepreneur. More eager to visit a hospital ward than to assist someone pursuing a dream. More enthusiastic about sharing tales of misfortune than stories of success.

Nothing feels more hypocritical than receiving sympathy from those who ignored, belittled, or quietly resented your achievements. It is difficult to appreciate their condolences when they were absent during your moments of triumph.

If you cannot sincerely celebrate another person’s success, applaud their achievements, share their recognitions, and rejoice in their growth, then your sympathy during their setbacks may appear hollow. To many, it will seem like pretense rather than compassion.

This, unfortunately, is often the psychological makeup of the average human being:uncomfortable with another person’s rise, yet strangely animated by their fall; silent at the dawn of success, but vocally compassionate at the arrival of misfortune.

In my local parlance, we call it “Ochi Eze”—the envious eye that struggles to rejoice when others prosper but finds comfort when they stumble.

True friendship, true humanity, and true Christianity demand something higher.

You are required not only to weep with those who weep but also to rejoice genuinely with those who rejoice. The latter, perhaps, is the more difficult virtue.

Know your friends. Equally know those who masquerade as friends but are indeed foes.

I have tarried awhile in this space of basic human behaviourial psychology to see through facade and decode the real intentions

Jarlath Uche Opara