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The Mental Calibrations of a Nigerian
If you have ever stood inside the kitchen, shaken a tin of Milo, and known precisely how many level tablespoons are left inside based solely on the frequency of the acoustic rattle, congratulations: your internal Nigerian dashboard is fully calibrated.
You reduce the speaker volume by two taps from maximum because you want it loud, but not that loud. Maximum volume is reserved for special occasions. You know the exact point where the speaker is producing enough sound to reach the next compound without announcing your entire playlist to the street.
Maybe That's the Point
You tear open a sachet of pure water and somehow calculate the exact amount you can drink while leaving enough behind to avoid your belly looking like you finished a gallon in one sitting. You are not measuring it. Your hand simply knows.
Then there is the strange mathematics of food.
You open the pot and immediately assess the situation. How many people are eating? How many pieces of meat are available? Who is likely to take two? If you serve yourself now, will there still be enough for later? You haven't even picked up the spoon, but the inventory has already been completed.
And sometimes the calculations have absolutely no business existing.
You sit on a bus and suddenly start wondering how long you could run at top speed if you were to run side to side, that's men thoughts process for you.
Lagos Traffic Has Its Own Puzzle
If you drive in Lagos, you eventually stop seeing traffic as just traffic.
You start reading movement.
That car ahead is slowing down. The bus beside you is about to stop. The okada behind you is already planning a move that technically hasn't happened yet.
Then there is the Keke Napep.
A complete wildcard.
You can be looking at a perfectly normal road and watch a Keke create a third lane where, until that exact moment, there was only a shoulder.
You think: There is no way that thing is getting through there.
It gets through.
Now you're questioning whether your car is simply too large.
You begin calculating gaps, angles and escape routes without even realising you're doing it.
And Then There Are Strangers
This is where the brain becomes completely unserious.
You're sitting in Lagos traffic and look into the car beside you.
You don't know this person.
You will probably never see them again.
Yet within thirty seconds, you've started wondering where they're going, why they're dressed like that, whether they are late, whether that phone call is work-related and why they have been staring at the same traffic light for so long.
You see someone walking through a crowded market and your brain starts writing a completely unnecessary biography.
This person definitely knows where they're going.
That woman is buying something specific.
That guy has probably been looking for this shop for twenty minutes.
None of this information is useful.
You are simply bored.
And your brain has decided that a stranger's afternoon is today's research project.
Maybe That's the Point
The Nigerian brain is always looking for a task.
Give it Milo and it becomes inventory management. Give it Lagos traffic and it becomes logistics. Give it a hypothetical chase and suddenly you're calculating your maximum running speed.
We measure things because, in a world where things rarely go according to plan, these random calculations are some of the few things we can control.
Maybe we just need somewhere for all that mental energy to go.
Something interesting to obsess over.
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