So, usually when you purchase an object, especially the brand new ones, not second hand stuff, they come all packaged with pictures of the object on the package and a neat user manual written in at least 2 languages. On my side of the globe it’s usually written in English and French or English and Chinese. If you aim to use the product properly and obtain maximum satisfaction as intended by the manufacturer, you have to read the user manual or watch a YouTube video on it like I do.
Very often when you miss out on reading the User Manual or watching a video that could help you navigate successfully, the lifespan of the object is often cut short. It has happened one too many times with the blenders I used or rather the way I used them. Heaven knows I have destroyed my fair share of blenders by not knowing the right voltage level they need to work right, not stopping the engine every few seconds or placing way too dry ingredients in blenders that could not handle such a texture. Then I tell myself the blender was not good enough, the manufacturer didn’t consider the Cameroonian culinary system(we do have a complicated choice of ingredients in our cuisine) so it was bound to get bad soon.
But for the curious technical kind of people, they just rather piece everything apart and start rebuilding piece by piece. It will either come back better than it was before or worse. The reverse engineering gamble has never been my strong suit, so I never tried.
Humans on the other hand are the total opposite of these products. Not just because one is a living thing and the other is dead, but for some other reasons which can be seen through the way they come, when they come and all of the mystery surrounding their arrival.
Take a look at their packaging or branding if you will. Products come with an appeal and beauty that just makes you want to rip the package open and start using your money’s worth. But babies, oh golly me. They come in an unusually fattened female flushing them out in a placenta liquid through a literally painful and life endangering process for the one doing the delivery. Then to crown all the waiting and anxiety, once they are born, they are not beautiful or handsome or appealing per se, their facial features and complexions are not even formed. They are just cute helpless beings, yet one generally feels an odd sense of usefulness in helping them.
Unlike products, they don’t come with a Manual or Guide specifying the complexion they’ll settle for, things to do in order to keep them alive, well and most especially happy. They have nothing that tells you what their favourite colour is, what meals are ideal besides breast milk that comes in a buy 1 take two pregnancy event. They don’t even have the courtesy of indicating when their bed time should be or what to do to shut them up once they decide to cry for hours and hours on end.
So you experiment. Everyday with a mini human is an experiment and you learn. So when you think back, what was your motivation for waking up everyday willing to continue this experiment (Besides wanting some peace and quiet from all the crying)? What made you willing to note down the things the baby loved and what irritated the baby so much as sharing these tips with other people who participated in the baby’s care? It could mainly be love.
I want to believe it is because you loved or still love the baby, that you consciously and intentionally chose to beat the odds. You don’t focus on the tantrums and wailing or throwing up. You do your best on the daily basis because you never want the baby to feel not loved, even for a moment.
But funny thing is, once these babies grow up we seem to think along the way they acquired or made User Manuals for themselves that stipulates how they should work. We forget every human was once a baby and what helped is love. Humans sure don’t come with a User Manual, but with an identity called “LOVE”.
There is nothing more we as humans desire than being loved and responding to this love with love in. This in no way cancels our crush and want for many other things. But there is a paramount desire. It’s important we don’t forget, and don’t have preconceived ideas as to what people want. A human User Manual is not going to pop up along the decades and centuries to come. You already have the ultimate guide at heart which flows in you because, humans do not come with User Manuals… but I guess you already knew that.
