Lessons in unexpected places.

I am amazed how the experiences that one doesn't even consciously acknowledge that one has can affect our daily understanding and perceptions of the world around us.
I have just finished watching a film which has caused me to think and feel quite deeply and not for the reasons that I thought it would.

I am surprised how having children changes us. I think it is right that it should and that it ought to. I think of the things that one would sacrifice for one's children. What of our lives or even our life would we or wouldn't we give for our children, or to be with them.

I am also thinking about how we understand or judge other people based on our own framework of emotions and experience. How what is honorable and good in the eyes of one can feel oppressive and restraining in the eyes of another.

We give up or sacrifice for those we love. We give up so that they may have the advantage and often they never know the sacrifices laid at their feet as they walk through life. I often worry about how that detracts from our sacrifice but I feel rather the opposite, that instead of negating it, such anonymity emboldens and strengthens such sacrifice.

I have wanted to rant for several weeks about certain trivial things that aggravate me on a daily basis; people who don't use their indicators on a roundabout or people who think that turning the indicator on is like using a magic wand to go whithersoever they desire on the road with no apparent conscious thought for the other motorists, those persons who park in spaces designated for the use of specific groups of individuals amongst the ranks of which said persons can not count themselves; my list could go on.

I thought today that one man's common decency is alien to another, what is acceptable and thoughtful behaviour to one is not even logical to another, and most shockingly today, I realised that what I think of as inconsiderate in some may be behaviour that isn't even considered to others; it's not that they care less about the society in which they live, it's not that they have somehow "untrained" their behaviour to be thoughtless, it's that they would never have considered it in the first place. It seems that there are an increasing number of people who grow up and become functioning adults in society but are unaware of courtesy or manners. I have been judging harshly that such folks are ignorant and wondering how they can possibly allow themselves to behave in that way. I repent of such judgements, I realise that for some, they are not arrogant or even ignorant, what I see as a lack or an excess is, to them, normal. It would be as alien to them to show certain considerations for me as it would be to me to grasp long division and apply it daily. That is perhaps an incorrect analogy seeing as I am aware of long division and my short comings therewith...

Anyway, I have had my eyes opened a little more and, while I think that manners and courtesy are an essential part of society, for example, I can not continue to judge those around me as anti social for not displaying such manners. I believe that it is asocial.

I wonder what that bodes for society around us?