Doubting the Coconut
Once upon a time while I sat in a trotro (public transportation van), I saw a woman waiting while her coconut was being opened. The setup was typical: a flat-board on four-wheels with green coconuts arrayed on top of it, a large umbrella overhead to keep out the inspecting sun, and a young man hacking skilfully away at the husk on the top part of a coconut. What grabbed attention was the woman standing on the other side of the wheeler. Her face. Her expression. Her mind.
She peered at the coconut rather suspiciously. Her face was contorted into that bigamy of disdain and incredulity that only an African woman knows how to insult you with. A forceful, thorough-going doubt poured from inside her unto that coconut, and from where I sat, her reasons were clear.
We all go to a coconut seller with a particular request. Some of us ask for one with “a lot of food.” Others, “a lot of water.” My friend Dufie likes to ask for the one with the milk that “tastes like Sprite.” Me? I want “Nea nsuo nu yε dε paaa” (“One with very sweet water”). Sometimes we threaten not to pay if the choice is wrong. We do this knowing that the coconut seller is not just a seller, but a zen master of the Arecacean¹ delicacy. He sees the insides of the nuts before the sunlight strews in. He hears the music of the water respond to the beating of the blunt butt of his machete. He knows his coconuts… almost by name.
But we also know our threat can be no more than just a joke because he can, like every mortal, be wrong. And Sometimes he is. We just don’t want to be the one that pays for the occasional error. We don’t want to be the rare person that is failed by his art. Something in it seems unfair. Why should twenty other people that day get exactly the coconut they wanted, and not us? If he’s going to fail, it shouldn’t be with us. Otherwise, we won’t pay.
I don’t know which kind this lady had asked for, but even before she could see the inside of the fleshy nut he had chosen, she disbelieved with all her heart, certainly with all her face. The coconut clearly inspired no confidence in her. It was almost like she was looking upon The Ugly Duckling, except knowing it would never become a swan. I wondered at her. I wondered, “Well, why be so suspicious?” “Why doubt the coconut and its hacker so strongly? Why make it so obvious that you do?” and “Why not reserve judgment? Why not just wait and see? Perhaps you’d be surprised, after all.” And that’s when it hit me:
She would not be surprised.
I realised at that moment, still gazing at her, that not only was she highly doubtful but more than that, she was convinced in her doubt, so much so that she would not be proved wrong. Her lack of faith was so great that it amounted to faith in itself. I realised that that coconut did not stand a chance: it would disappoint her no matter what, unless it turned out to be a super, out-of-this-world coconut. No average coconut would have enough to satisfy her. The problem was that most coconuts are normal coconuts, living their lives not too far off the average of size, thickness of flesh, and taste of water. Lo and behold, the hacking was finally over, and the coconut was opened. Her facial contortion, as I expected, deepened. She looked across to a man she had been standing with and mumbled something that surely went along the lines of an I-told-you-so. He smiled. And so did I. Maybe we both sighed sadly inside.
Because you see, this is not just about coconuts. Sometimes we set ourselves up for a fall simply by choosing to see cliffs all around us. Sadly, the setup is a very real one. That’s because it creates an interpretive framework within which every experience is construed according to our doubts and fears. We are so convinced of negativity that we close our eyes to any golden ray or silver lining. And thus we become trapped in a mental default in which we see only the dark side of any event or person in our lives. We see every choice we make as wrong, every opportunity as hiding a threat, every person as a traitor, and life itself as a series of impending disasters. And that is what it will invariably be to us, because
The pessimistic mindset does not only expect the worst; it creates it.
So while it might offer a sense of caution, it never allows the satisfaction of success. That is its curse. Because experiences will come to us whether we like it or not. The difference is in how we approach and receive them. Perhaps, then, it is better to be more open-minded, to not judge before we have seen, dismiss before we have admitted, conclude before we have even started. Perhaps it is better to give people the benefit of any doubts that may be legitimate to hold about them and allow them to prove or disprove themselves. That way we can judge people and experiences by who and what they actually are, rather than by the failures and disasters we expect them to be.
Maybe, in short, we should give the coconut a chance; it might surprise us after all.
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[1] Belonging to the plant family Arecaeae
