I find it unnerving when society confounds intelligence with career. The idea that doctors are smarter than teachers. Or Lawyers more intelligent than bus conductors. I know this is what 8-4-4 teaches, but it is faulty. Who you become is shaped by opportunity & preparedness.
A bus conductor with the lawyer's experiences WOULD make a lawyer. A man with the bus conductor's experiences and limitations WOULD make a bus conductor. This implies that the potential is not immutable. And that there has to be a positive foundation for impact to be realized.
Take me for example, I love and enjoy reading. But when you trace my background, I had the opportunity & preparedness for it. I had a librarian mother, & easy access to the library. So when my introversion needed an escape, it was readily available to me in the form of library.
Now, a child with my character in Kathonzweni might not be able to realize such fascination not because they are any different but because when they sought an escape, there was nothing in their reality to fall back to. No opportunity/preparedness.
Look at politician's/bougeoisie' kids. They are good-time Charlies with opportunity. Now opportunity might come in the form of scholarship, rich parents, but what you become ultimately comes down to how your society prepared you, and its opportunities.
Obama in Kenya would have amounted to little more than a cardboard politician. He acknowledges this in his book & nomination speech: "in no other country on Earth is my story even possible". It is an acknowledgment of the superior hand of opportunity and preparedness.
We are not saying that individual excellence is not a factor. It is. But these must be complemented by opportunity/preparedness. Trace the history of doctors, you'll find that a close relative (father/mother was a doctor). Or politicians. Or musicians. Look at Indians in Kenya.
Or the bus driver, I met yesterday. A man whose greatness is his authenticity. With free education, access to mentorship, he might not have made a doctor, but would have made a rally driver. A Hamilton. A Schumacher. Find out what Schumacher's son does for a living. See my point?
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