Respect

I just had a great conversation with my roommate. Its the sort of not drunk but not sober conversation where people are very honest. He is a native of India and I am well... not...

The core of the conversation was about respect. We agreed on the following two things:

• India could learn from the US about respect for labor.
• The US could learn from India about respect for the past.

Three examples might help.

At the Office, myself and another American always say hi to the guard at our building. The natives however, seem quite amazed and/or uncomfortable about it.

A good friend of mine would often swear at his mom. I was in shock when he'd tell his mom to "Fuck Off."

My dad frequently corrected on things that were done on the past. I would often say "that is stupid" with a statement like, "Really? Here is why its done that way..." and go no to destroy my statement.

So, without getting into any kind of debate about India and the US, I'm thinking about respect. How important is it? What does it mean?

To me, I respect people who have done something. It may not be famous or great, but a lot of the things that we consider common are in fact very difficult. A good example might be raising a child. I have a younger a sister and, to some degree, I've seen her grow up. I've thought about what might happen if she had parents that were screw ups. I mean, raising a kid requires giving them values, teaching them, understanding their development, knowing whats important to them at each and knowing whats important in life. I mean, for an adult, the mind of a child is very strange. The "society" of kids has values that adults think are small. Its honestly quite amazing that the whole system works at all.

So, I guess I respect anyone who has raided a kid. But thats not all. In history, people have done amazing things. I wonder about the number of amazing people who I don't know about. What did they think? What am I missing from not knowing who they are? Einstein came up with general relativity, but a lot of physicists before him were coming damn close to the idea. As far as I know, special relativity was the invention of Poincare. That may not be true, but certainly the great minds in history took a lot from the people before them. The famous ones are usually brilliant but always lucky to be in the right place at the right time.

Anyway, I guess I wonder what I haven't thought about, what I don't know and how to pick it up. I want to respect what people throughout history and around the world believe and think but I want to distill it, as much as I can, to the "truth." At least, insofar as "truth" even make sense.

Thinking about truth is making me drift back to religion... but perhaps, thats for later.... Its 2:00 AM and sleep might not be a horrible thing. So, I guess my final thought on this entry is, I/we need to be careful who I/we disrespect... we may not understand the understanding of the world someone has picked up.

Sorry if this obvious, but its certainly important.