Ties that Bind

Respect is an interesting mask of being. Why mask? Well because sometimes I have a suspicion that there are some among us that parade their respect for all and sundry to see but scratch the surface and what one might find is little more than a controlled derision.

I prefer the verb of the noun because as we know the verbs are the action men and women of the noun family. The verb of respect is: to ‘show consideration for’. It means we are required to get up close and personal rather than simply hanging back. Making assumptions about a thing from afar as it were.

I like the challenge of seeing things at the coal face. It tweaks our perceptions. But more importantly I like that it calls us to an action and doesn’t allow us to bluff our way through life pretending we’re interested in a thing at a very superficial level. That’s simply do-gooding with no purpose. Well, none that’s useful in my opinion!

So what’s got me following the respect tangent? It’s a generational thing I guess. I was speaking to an older guy (he was 80) recently. Here we were, two people from vastly different generations with a common love, our local Bowlo. It occured to me that a common love was sufficient basis for bridging a generation gap. It was a liberating thought.

The kicker is, that, despite a few semantic differences our common love enabled us to overlook younger-older people differences that might have otherwise mattered alot on another occasion. I loved that it didn’t this time round. So we got to yarning and I have to admit after a number of hours I felt that my life had been significantly added to, I felt reluctant to leave the conversation. Older generations are ‘moving histories, like a film reel. Film reels that could be lost to some dusty archive some place if we let them be.

I decided today, I didn’t want that to happen. Maybe you know some one from another generation. How hard would it be to strike up a conversation? Not that hard I’m figuring. And it occurs to me, the one thing people like to do is talk about themselves. Go on, go build a bridge. You’ll be surprised how easy it is and trust me, you’ll come away with a deeper understanding of what it is to both respect and honour the older generations in our societies.

A word of advice, not all old people are approachable and gracious (possibly from hard lives) but you’d be surprised how treated respectfully they are happy to fill you in on the life and times of where you live. Oral histories, they’re a beautiful thing to hear.