September 13, 2012

• you just don't understand...

  I wonder how many times I said that, or something so close it doesn't matter. I know I hear it almost daily.

  As a kid, growing up, it was something I probably spat out far more often than it was warranted, because, lets face it, our parents probably do understand what and how we feel from their own lives. It just seems they have forgotten, at least that's how it seems to me, or more likely, I refused to believe that they could ever know what I felt or they wouldn't be subjecting me to at the time.

  I know that now, when I hear it from the people I work with, it's most often used as a expletive to shut me up. OK, not just work, but more there than anywhere else.

  My problem isn't that I always disagree with people when they say it, there is far more that I know I don't understand than I ever will, it's that they use it as an accusation, to blame me for not understanding. They use it to absolve themselves of any blame. But that's the point...

  It's true that there are many things I can do to learn to understand something, but it's also true that when it comes to very personal things, like love, religion, hate, there is no possible way for me to understand unless you are willing to teach me. I can't know how you feel, or how you see the world, the future, your beliefs, unless you make an effort to show me what I don't see.

  I've come to conclude that there many times when the understanding of something isn't my responsibility, not unless the person is just as willing to teach me, as I am to learn.

  And that, is the point...

  • 1:33 pm
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