I love listening to these young women in front of me in the next seat as they spout their logic about how to drink and how their friends don’t know how to drink. Amazing how their limited sight distance is a continuum in their minds. Their friendship is based on how much they agree with each other. There is nothing cerebral that they are exchanging only what their five senses are telling them. The guide dog inside themselves is purely visceral, it has no empathic connection to the world at large. They can only see what the loom of the light before them reveals. And their compact mirror gives them the license to paint whatever image they choose.
jb-
ReplyDeleteI know many people like this. You must realize that this behavior is not unusual and sometimes all a person is capable of. I am sometimes struck in the same way by the things my 64 year old father says (my mother says similar things, but she lives far away). There are many things that contribute to this behavior: maturity (rather lack of), social status, culture, education and self-awareness (lack of).
I believe that every person has some sort of beauty. Some have only physical and the lucky ones have much more beautiful qualities that lie deep within. I'm guessing that you experienced the former with little underneath.
Your post reminds me of something that my much older second cousin said to me when I was 20. Richard said, "Don't judge everyone by your intelligence". I don't think he realized how this has impacted my life. I have extrapolated this to trying not to judge people at all, but specifically not judging people by their lack of education, physical beauty and lack of self awareness.
Jb, it is obvious that you are an intelligent, self aware and emotionally evolved man. But I caution you in criticizing others, not everyone is capable of these things.
AYW
I don't think it is judgment. it is rather an observation that people are just living on the surface. I think a lot has to do with parenting. Parents in my generation and after did a lousy job making their offspring aware that there are other people in the world and they have feelings. Egocentricity is a disease and it is rampant in this country. It manifests itself in this sense of entitlement that young people have. It is a sickness.
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