Dear Sienna Elyse,
I read this article this morning about how there are some Japanese people who go to Paris thinking that it will be one thing and when their trip doesn’t go as expected, they have what is dubbed “Paris Syndrome.” This is basically freaking out because Paris does not meet the standards they expected it to, the language barrier is big and complex, the cultures vary so widely, and the time difference between the countries causes an almost insurmountable jet lag effect. This can happen to anyone for anything (besides Paris). It's a result being short-sighted, believing everything you’re told (or at least what the movies say) and not really having an idea of the world outside of your own. It’s a scary thing and something I see a lot of around me (although it doesn’t generally result in a psychological meltdown, thankfully). The ones I’m more familiar with are people who may not have a heart attack at the sight of different cultures, but even worse, refuse to accept them because they don’t know or understand them! Fear will always bring anger and hatred, and not understanding and knowing the world around you will bring fear. So, essentially, not being able to look beyond yourself and being so self-centered that you can’t think outside of your own little box, is how fear and hatred come about.
I didn’t have the greatest upbringing, but one thing we did have was a broad view of many things. While we were told to accept our own religion as the only correct one, we were also given to understand many things about other people and other cultures. Regardless of how it came about, we learned to understand, if not accept, other people of other cultures, including things that we wouldn't normally expect, or attitudes and actions that we’d never come across before. I think the only thing that I never learned, was to accept stupidity borne of an inability to see beyond one’s self. If you are always thinking about yourself and the things that make you comfortable or that you like and don’t look outwards beyond yourself, aside from being a self-centered jerk, you will just be stupid. There is not a single great person who didn’t look beyond themselves to get to where they got. Even if some of them did it for personal reasons, they still had to look beyond their little sandbox in order to get further. It doesn’t make you a good person, but it does make you smarter.
Just imagine thinking that there is no world beyond your bedroom and, thus, stay there becoming queen of all your toys and rule your bedroom as the most powerful thing in your whole bedroom! Suddenly, one day you get the idea to open the door and you find a whole house outside of what you thought was your world! So you go out there, then go further and leave the house, then go even further and leave the street, the city, the country. Well, once you’re sitting in Africa, after seeing the wonders that the Sahara has to offer, won’t you think that you were pretty stupid to think that being queen of your own bedroom was “great?” I know that sounds silly, but that’s the way things are in the real world. The minute you think you’ve gotten the furthest you can get, the highest you can go, the most powerful you’ll ever be, is the moment you allow yourself to be a complete fool. Because what do we really know? For all we know, this world is just one bedroom in a house, in a country on a planet in a universe...
Unfortunately, I think I often feel I know people well enough to be able to put them into their own categories, and I’m quick to do so. “He says this, so that means he’s a [fill in the blank]." Of course, that’s very judgmental and probably the wrong way to look at people and deal with them. Because someone tells one lie, does not mean that they are always a liar – then again, you can’t really say of someone who has told a single lie that they never lie, so doesn’t that put them in the “liar” category? Haha. I'm not making my own point with that! I suppose, you have to think beyond every little fault and characteristic (especially those you dislike) and try to find a way to accept people for who they are. For example, some Southern people chew tabbaccy and spit nasty, disgusting stuff in public places and it’s so totally gross. BUT, perhaps that’s a part of their culture and the way they were raised, so how can you say that it’s wrong to do it? Even if you don’t do it yourself and you don’t like it.
It all comes back to understanding things you may not be completely familiar with. Always remember that the ill advantage is with the man who thinks his way is the only way, or the best way. Until you’ve tried every single way from the point of every single person, you can’t possibly know what is the best. And since we are not Gods, we will never know everything about anything. There’s always the thing we don’t know about a thing that we didn’t know we didn’t know. Right?
Love you,
Mom
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