Thought Picnic: The Many Mirrors of Criticism

The Mirror and Its Drip

Criticism is a mirror, but not all mirrors are polished the same way. The polishing might bring clarity, or the mode of polishing might scratch the surface and distort what we see. When we look in the mirror, we hope to see the best reflection of ourselves rather than a caricature that makes us recoil.

Dripping criticism is subtle and persistent. It is the raised eyebrow, the “interesting choice” comment, the slow leak of disapproval that erodes confidence over time. A manager who says, every week, “We'll need to tighten this up eventually,” without clarity or support, creates doubt rather than direction.

I dare say this almost always comes from familiar settings: the parent who has constantly said something that becomes ingrained in memory, a habit formed with the intent to change yet one that does the opposite, creating tension, resistance, and resentment.

Left unchecked, those early and well-meant words settle into the inner critic we carry into adulthood, a voice that goes on speaking in a parent's cadence long after the parent has fallen silent.

Burning on Contact

Caustic criticism burns on contact. It is sharp, often clever, and sometimes public. “Did you even read the brief?” may get a laugh from bystanders, but it scars the recipient. Its power lies in humiliation, not improvement.

Its purpose is to reduce a person to insignificance; it highlights inadequacy in order to expose weakness. The person on the receiving end is likely to shrink, wishing the ground would open so they might fall into the crevasse. It is wholly unkind, the bailiwick of the sociopath.

Tearing Down

Destructive criticism tears down without offering a path forward. “This whole plan is a mess” ends the conversation instead of advancing it. It may be emotionally satisfying to the critic, but it leaves both the work and the worker diminished.

This goes beyond cynicism; it is the need to complain without helping or offering solutions. It sees the problem clearly yet fails to realise that identification is not resolution. There is a close cousin here in withering criticism, the scornful, contemptuous remark designed to make a person wilt on the spot.

It borrows the sting of the caustic and the finality of the destructive, which is perhaps why it is so hard to place: it wounds like the one and forecloses like the other.

Care and Clarity

Constructive criticism, by contrast, is anchored in care and clarity. It names the issue and points towards growth. “The introduction is strong. The argument would be clearer if you added evidence in paragraph two” respects both the person and the goal. It assumes capability.

This brings the best of helpfulness to the fore: empathy, guidance, and emotional intelligence, which engender growth and productivity. It takes a wholly different mindset. Yet every sort of criticism, given with the right intentions, can become constructive; it depends on motivation, desire, and drive.

Gentler Forms and Love

There are gentler forms too. Reflective criticism asks questions rather than making declarations. “What outcome were you hoping for here?” invites ownership.

Self-criticism, when healthy, refines craft and character; when excessive, it becomes an internalised drip. Cultural criticism challenges norms and systems rather than individuals, asking whether the rules themselves deserve revision.

Ultimately, criticism reveals as much about the giver as the receiver. The best criticism carries three traits: specificity, proportionality, and goodwill. Without goodwill, it corrodes. With goodwill, even hard truths can build something stronger than what existed before.

Its reach is wider than the work in hand, for over time criticism shapes confidence and character, bolsters or erodes self-esteem, tips us towards obstinacy or leaves us open to persuasion, and quietly colours the way we see the world; but that is a thread for another day.

Beyond goodwill, perhaps the real driver of the best kind of criticism is love: a deep love, concerned to bring about the kind of change in others that we wish for ourselves. The root of that is self-love, from whence springs the ability to love and to be loved in return.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

When Are You Going to Sit Down?

An Unexpected Enquiry

Just over two years ago, a man whose history in journalism stretches back more than 45 years contacted me for a copy of my CV. He had held top editorial positions at four of the most prominent Nigerian newspapers and magazines, and he still writes syndicated copy today.

He had come across my blog and, from a link on the page, requested access to my CV. To satisfy his curiosity, he wanted to determine whether I had a journalism background that might explain how I had sustained a blog for 20 years. On reading my CV, he expressed both shock and surprise that I held no formal qualifications in the humanities; I am an engineer who has broadly pursued a career in IT.

Recognition and Striving

Acknowledgement and recognition come from many places, and I hope I am able to take a compliment with grace whenever it is offered.

However, even as one strives for excellence, there are others who observe what you do and for whom you are not yet performing at your best. There is always that feeling that you could do better, and that in itself overrides every other concern.

Why I Began

When I started my blog in 2003, I saw it as an outlet for my views, and I had no intention of turning it into a commercial venture. I did everything at my own pace and wrote as I was inspired, usually hoping to bring a fresh perspective to matters that others tended to cover with a common view.

I do not believe I ever came to any agreement with anyone that my blog would become a platform for other activities, such as publishing a book. The idea of writing my story only took hold after my first bout with cancer and the period following treatment in 2010. Things developed from there, and I also battled prostate cancer in 2024; today marks two years to the day since I received the diagnosis of adenocarcinoma of the prostate.

A Loaded Comment

Imagine my surprise, then, when a comment was left on one of my recent blogs to the following effect: “When are you going to sit down and assemble relevant topics of your writings into books for future generations, particularly in Africa, to benefit? Your use of the English language and construction is superb. Some of your writings could come under, for example, tourism, based on your experience in South Africa and Amsterdam, or business management.”

You could take a good deal from that comment; the commendation and the suggestion were both gratifying and informative. Yet you could just as easily miss the criticism buried within it, and I heard it in the voice of the writer, as I have many times before, whenever their expectations were not met by my application, rigour, or initiative.

Refusing to Please

One thing I learnt a long while ago was to jump off the bandwagon of trying to please people. I do my work to the best of my ability and constantly strive to do better. That is my conviction, and it is the energy I bring to every endeavour.

It is the phrase “When are you going to sit down…?” that does the heavy lifting here, implying that you are not directing your abilities and faculties towards the essential.

In this case, that means writing books for which I have so far received no commissions. I have no obligation to write either another blog or a book, but I do have the desire to, at a time of my own choosing, if and when I convince myself of that need.

Parents and Approval

I still have my parents, who are octogenarians. I receive the occasional expression of pride in me, but that can easily be a speck in a bowl of displeasure at one thing or another. The fact that I am totally estranged from one and barely in communication with the other is the sum of the difficult relationship we have had since my childhood.

I was a difficult child and adolescent; I had my own issues, just as they had theirs. However, I am so completely past seeking their approbation that the desire fizzled out at twenty, and, as far as possible, I resolved that their influence on me would be as minimal as it could be, just as my dear uncle, around that time, shielded me so that I could flourish in my own way.

Words That Matter

What could it have cost to word that comment another way? “Your use of the English language and construction is superb. I can see elements that might lend themselves to books on your travels to South Africa and Amsterdam. Other topics, such as business management, I have seen in your recent writings, show that you could benefit future generations, especially in Africa.”

Imagine how warmly I would have received that version, responding with gratitude and grace whilst taking the ideas into consideration. The manner and tone of a conversation, along with the order of the words, do matter. Instead, I am riled, annoyed, and spitting tacks. It might have been well-intentioned, but it failed to hit the mark.

I might just have lost the desire to write a book. The medal for royally pissing off your child must surely have been awarded in the King’s birthday honours list, released on Friday.

A Google NotebookLM AI Podcast on this blog

In the quest for that sliver of constructive criticism that mattered

The hostile oven of criticism

“Oò serious, Akin”. Is a code switch of mixing languages that you might find among people who speak more than one language, and in this case, this is a Yoruba-English construct roughly meaning, “You’re not serious, Akin.” I however found out that the Dutch who are usually polyglots find the mixing of languages confusing.

The many variants of this phrase, I have heard as the lead-in to criticism and excoriation, an unchallengeable viewpoint posited by those with responsibility, means, opportunity, and the power arrogated to deliver the cutting without the growing.

Along with this, is another in Yoruba, “Kí lón ṣe ẹ́?” “What is the matter with you?” Delivered with sneering, disdain, and derision, maybe just disappointment, but implicitly implying you are not trying hard enough with all the advantages, privileges, and benefits you might have in relation to others, not accounting for any extenuating circumstances that anyone is willing to discover.

Humiliation as character building

In one seminal case, when I was addressed with the first statement, I dared to respond that I thought I was doing my best. It was taken as disrespectful and an affront, and at that point, another uncle stepped in to deliver a stinging slap, before commanding I grovel and apologise. Then, it was necessary to compound the humiliation by being ordered to do house chores, which we had someone employed to do.

Somehow, in many cases, there was an absence of constructive criticism in elements of my upbringing, though, that is not to say that I was not a difficult child and adolescent, I had my issues, and I could argue that they were not considered important in the scheme of things.

Bygones that cannot be foregone

Why dredge up these historical events when as the patriarch is wont to say, let bygones be bygones? It is because the bygones were defining even if the instigators would like to forget what they did and the impact of the same. There is a child in us that never forgets, despite all the work we do in self-development to ensure that the hold of the past does not become a limiting factor in our present or immediate future.

We all bear scars that we apply the makeup of presentation, expression, and personality to conceal to varying degrees of success, it is gratifying that there were still people who believed in us and supported us from under the crushing weight of unrelenting criticism and much else.

Where a child lives

It reminds me of something I read that is attributed to Dorothy Law Nolte who articulated quite succinctly the power of positive youth development. It appears on many posters that I read, and I tried to convince myself that much of what I experienced was positive and a good deal was, but it is never that easy to forget the criticism, the ridicule, the insecurity, the threats, the unfriendliness, and all that feeding a debilitating fear than was deemed respectful.

One moment of searing endearment and concern was delivered when they both ganged up on me in the administration of corporal punishment. He was taking a breather, probably in exhaustion, he said to her, “Mind his eyes.” That is love, I remember it well.

I love them, but they are not saints.

Some contextual references

Blog - Thought Picnic: A dreamy page of a family saga (2016)

Blog - Never maltreat a child (2023)

Blog - Thought Picnic: A child has memories that last a lifetime (2021)

Blog - The damage done when parents fail to listen (2015)

Children Learn What They Live

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn.
If children live with hostility, they learn to fight.
If children live with ridicule, they learn to be shy.
If children live with shame, they learn to feel guilty.
If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence.
If children live with tolerance, they learn to be patient.
If children live with praise, they learn to appreciate.
If children live with acceptance, they learn to love.
If children live with approval, they learn to like themselves.
If children live with honesty, they learn truthfulness.
If children live with security, they learn to have faith in themselves and others.
If children live with friendliness, they learn the world is a nice place in which to live.

© 1955 Dorothy Law Nolte – Children Learn What They Live

Childhood: Remembering the times I had no one to talk to

If we could turn back time

I do not know how I would have been able to help my parents redo elements of my upbringing that might with hindsight has made me a better person. However, I do notice there are things that I picked up by example and other things that probably would have been better imparted by clear instruction and relatable lessons of life rather than relying on the osmosis of parenting.

Two specific things I think my parents left to osmosis, the hope that I turned out the way they expected without their active engagement, first, the management of money and secondly the real usefulness of school and academic achievement. I think I understood I was lacking in financial wisdom when I was sent away at 10 to take common entrance examinations.

I was given some money which I frittered away and spent on things I rarely had access to like comics and gave some away to the cousins who could take advantage of my naivety and generosity, I was no wiser. During that visit, I was also given money by relations, it is strange as I remember today that I was able to account for everything I was given by them, but not properly for what my parents gave me. The way the questioning went, about how I spent the money suggested they were quite displeased with me.

No reason I knew

I attended primary school because that was what you did, I effortlessly passed my examinations usually coming second or third in the class, but I hated revision or homework. There were many times I was caught out in class, lying that I had submitted my homework when I had not. It was a shameful and embarrassing experience when Mrs Onyemenam would put me in front of the class and have my classmates call out in unison, Liar!

There was a time I was a bedwetter both at home and in the first year and a half at secondary school, yet, in the almost 5 months I spent with relations in Lagos and Sagamu before secondary school, I never once wet my bed until my father came to visit and I spent the night with him at his hotel when he was down for a business trip.

Blog - Childhood: Atòólé

In secondary boarding school, I probably had serious child psychology issues that were attended to with rituals, amulets, and crazy animist practices. I always lost my things, rarely took notes in class and by the third year, I played truant hating some of the classes because they were exhausting and boring. It ended up on my school report, my mother a school principal was completely exasperated that she had a truant for a son.

The cane was not my bane

Whilst I never face corporal punishment for my academic achievements or failures even when I had to withdraw because I failed a repeated year in polytechnic, there was no shortage of criticism and excoriation especially from my father, a brilliant and a high-achieving accountant who must have sometime wondered how I came to be his son.

I can say in polytechnic I was clinically depressed, I had instances when I attended classes and I could understand what was going on or why I was there. I was not abusing substances or anything, I just had a head that seemed to be completely unaware of what I was doing. It is strange that I seemed to keep my sanity by falling into religion. It did not make matters any easier at home.

It was in these areas of disagreement and misalignment with my parents’ philosophies that I suffered the most and received the severest corporal punishments, they together ganging up on me, it was also an opportunity to humiliate, as I was ejected from my room and made to sleep on the floor.

The home was not a school to success

Now, in the minds of my parents doing everything they knew how to bring up successful and well-adjusted children, they were doing their best with the tools they had. Too many times, the comparison was the weapon to refocus, an uncle there or an aunt there who somehow had some opportunity but apparently wasted it became the terror of what you did not want to be.

In the end, the greatest lessons in life that helped me out of the rut I was in was not the discipline, the disagreements, the fights that included a headbutting from my father, or that backhand swipe of my mother that so connected well with face momentarily blinding me, it was in the understanding of other uncles and aunts who had experienced failure and overcome those circumstances to be successful.

It is ironic that many of them had some guidance from my parents when they were at their lowest ebb, they repaid by giving their nephew allowances, opportunity and encouragement to turn my life around and believe I really could make something of my life. None of this is to spite my parents, but there are aspects of child development that have left scars even if they seem to be healed.

Thought Picnic: Remembering the day you were told, you smell like a toilet

In juvenile detention

I left the office early today at the end of a 2-week working visit to Berlin to be able to beat the rush-hour traffic to the airport. Even that did not mean we were not caught up in traffic until my taxi cab driver used his smarts to cut a detour that took probably 20 minutes out of our journey time.

Down one of the byroads, I noticed high fences and barbed wire on top of the walls. Military, I thought until I saw the sign in German for young offender’s institution. The taxi cab driver said it was a place for pickpockets.

I thought about the parents of the kids in that institution and how they might have helped or failed their kids. Maybe there was nothing they could do about the situation.

The threat of detention

Just then, my thoughts wandered to the many instances where in my father’s displeasure, he threatened to have me locked up in a police cell, for no other reason than the breakdown of communication and the thought that the experience might just toughen me up and make me probably more amenable to the thinking and the respectful subservience to his obstinate will.

Whilst the threat was never carried out because others intervened, and I was to humble and humiliate myself at his feet to placate him, the thought that he would threaten this police cell idea remained a lasting blot to what could have developed into a more rewarding father-son relationship.

It is no stretch of the imagination that I was at times a difficult and unruly child, in some ways the rebelliousness was seeking a way of independent expression, some of which might well have landed me in a young offender’s institution.

When to them you smell

Things finally came to an irredeemable schism when on failing my course he decided I would be more useful on his failing farm. It was conceptually a gulag neither I nor my mother was keen on the idea. I guess on the running of my luck, I had become more of a mother’s child than a father’s child. The morning we were to go to the farm, my sister gave me some money and I left my home for good.

However, I find myself writing this blog because I just read reports of an excerpt from Lisa Brennan-Jobs’ book called Small Fry in which she talks of the difficult and sometimes strained relationship she had with her father, the legendary Steve Jobs. [The Telegraph]

She visited him just before he died and sprayed on an expensive rose facial which she found in one of her father’s bathrooms and his acknowledgement? “You smell like a toilet.” This after hugging her.

A destructive streak

It is sometimes difficult to write about the complicated relationship between a parent and a child. The joy in your being born could soon dissipate into condescension, obloquy, disparagement and condemnation. “You smell like a toilet”, is a paraphrase that means many things from disappointment, disillusion and anger on the part of the parent.

You’re not measuring up, in the many ways you by osmosis were supposed to not just to meet the standard but exceed it, whatever that unspoken standard was. The times I was not fast enough, I was not man enough, I was not athletic enough, my teeth were rotten, my mouth was smelly, I was stupid, blind, dumb, an altogether a sense of shame that I could ever have been their offspring. When nothing else worked the ultimate putdown was, you were not responsible.

Take heed what you say

There is a coming of age to this whole process though, from the earnest desire to please and receive praise, through the fear of offending locking you into a state of stupefying stunted lack of agency, the need for acceptance then tires you out to the point of seething resentment, by which time indifference leads you to live your own life the best way you can regardless. You shrug it all off.

I cannot remember when the desire to please my father lost its drive, it was before I was 20 and I had already failed at simple and difficult things. I became the ward of another who allowed me to explore possibilities in ways that gave me a sense of direction.

In some ways, I have a good relationship with my father now, in others, flippant statements in the tone and intent of “You smell like a toilet” have a way of sticking in the recesses of your memory for a lifetime. They are never forgotten. You always remember those things, for they cut deep, stab you in the heart and recovering from the blow is almost impossible, maybe only time can heal the pain.

Take heed what you say to a child.