Grey Outside - Black Inside

I know, I am getting hyper about this blog thing.....everyone did that, juss that they did it eons ago.....and I see all those avid bloggers lost steam and got bored of it and their blogs are neglected ruins of once glorious past. I am afraid I wd become that too..because once I am back home...I would get in to this'Complacent mode' and would settle to a routine with no such activities like writing n all.It will be 'Buying Vegetables' 'Visiting relatives' 'Paying Bills' 'Municipal Office''tenent'.Mundane life you see...
So I am trying to write as much as I can, before I get back to that mode.the things I always wanted to write about, and seek opinions.and see if I what I think is OK.
This thought has been in my mind from the time when I was 16 ( just two years ago)...thoseRebel years....I have mellowed down, changed and matured (note , its juss in TWO years ONLY)...
but this is still an issue with me. I have an argument over this with my dad even now, and I cant understand why he cant understand what I understand of this issue.( I make simple sentences, I told you in my earlier blogs)

Its about respecting people ......
.ok , let me make the problem statement more objective and clear....
'Its about respecting people who are older to you'
I know, I have been bought up on this cardinal rule of 'Respect your elders'. the etiquette and all.
not to interrupt, not to question back....

Now my problem here is....well.......every word of it
What do you mean by Respect.
What do you mean by Elder.
the problem here is, this has been the norm from the beginning of the Indian society, so its like a million year old philosophy. I am a immature newbee tryin to challenge something established. they would have come to a conclusion about this, after a lot of time.

but I think my issue with it is :
one, like I said , the very definition of it and
Two: TheRelevance in the present world( my world is IT world...I am the frog in the IT well)

Are we respecting the AGE or are we respecting the Experience...Even if we ARE respecting age, I think the forefathers 'Assumed' that with time, people willgain WISDOM.. along with age..How many of the 'Grey Haired' Gentlemen ( somehow gray haired women seem OK-personal prespective) behave and act like they have grey material INSIDE their grey exterior.

I have a million examples of oldies who are light years from the basic suvival wisdom, but the most recent example is what I am going to refer.

I know these two guys.One has got an experience of 17 years and the other has some 15 years.One is 42 year old andthe other is 45 year old.45 year old happens to be the subordinate ( such word does notexist in the Saaftware world) of the 42 year old guy.And they work together and have this enormous egos fit for a Roman Emporer.They argue about everything and what ever Mr X says, Y straight away says the opposite. they have opposite views on everything....even if they change sides, they will still end up having opposite sides....juss for the Heck of it..OK that cat and mouse game is normal everywhere.......everyone does it...

But my concern is.. they stupidly argue about silly things and vehemently try to prove each other silly and above all, they do it before me. I just do not understand why they dont realisethat I am almost half their age (18 ) and they are losing thier respect.Why cant they behave.
Worse Still they ask me for justice.....I am the Monkey between the fightingcats.

The worst part is, recently Mr 42 suddenly fell ill and his condition worsened.he asked Mr 45 to borrow some medicines and sprays from me.Mr 45 comes to my room talks about mundane things and goes back and I get in to the cab unaware that Mr 42 fell ill and is serious pain.
I see he is in severe pain, not his general constipated look.
I ask him whats wrong, and he is shocked.....He asks me 'Dint Mr 45 tell you?' .I was like 'What'
Mr 42 tells me the story and says he had sent Mr 45 to get the medicines I have in my First Aid Kit.I look at Mr 45 and he juss says 'I forgot it'.I mean its as stupid as saying 'I forgot eating' after you come out of a restaurent.
And some time later, when I find Mr 45 free and Mr 42 not in the near vicinity....I ask him'Why dint you tell me Mr 42 is in such pain".

The answer is as powerful as 'I have a dream'.Just that it showed the ugly face of human thought.
He said 'Mr 42 has been irritating me from the day 1 I am with him, he dos not respect me for my age, he makes fun of me, he had been acting very smart and bl abla bla....SO he should go throught the pain, because he disrespected ME'....and this is my way of taking revenge...accha huva saale ko....nahi tou mereko kitna sataya ( he must go thru the pianbecause he troubled me)".Dont ask me why anyone should respet this guy after you hear wordslike this from him.the issue here is... not respecting because of not getting respected FOR AGE.
and this is the way to express 'disrespect' ..

NOW....the last time I heard anything like this from a human being is in my Kindergharten.Its not that the Kids were cruel, but they had not enough IQ/EQ or enoughunderstanding of what exactly they mean by a certain word or sentence.The common being 'Aaj maths teacher ko heart attack aajana chahiye....Saala Physics teacherke haath pair tooth jaane chahiye, nahi tou mereko claas ke samne maara....and all.(Mathsteacher shd get a heart attack...physics teacher should lose his arms n limbs because hebeat me before the classroom).If all my prayers were answered , my maths teacher should geta fatal heart attack every morning, the first class of the day when he asked for homeworks.

But this man, has got a college going kid and a professionally qualified, SAAFWARE guy ( we are supposed to be the cool guys...all made up n fake attitudes.BINGO I just got anothertopic....How the saaftware guys say something and what they mean and how we evolved over theyears to fake brilliant etiquette, write and say polite things but mean obnoxious things)

I was so taken aback ...what kind of emotional quotient are we talking when a 45 year old cannot differentiate his personal and professional life......of adhering to the basic human duty to help someone in distress...could not isolate passion from compassion........

With such low emotional quotions he cannot differentiate and keep different emotional baggage in different compartments.......his ability to judge is lost.
the circuit fails to get a correct reaction for a particular stimuls,circuit fails because it does not understand which value to get from the same column....query errors because there are multiple records in the same row.OK for the lowly non saaftware guys, it means
Stimulus A----react and do Plan A, feeling involved 'A'
Stimulus B----react and do plan B, feeling B
This is how our congnitive skills are wired wehn we grow ( the problem is, some people refuse to grow up and hence the lack of reactions)-----I know....this is all mytheory....but isnt there a 'Stimulus action' theory in psychology.......of how a human childlearns .......whateverin

the above case, if you have very low EQ, you would store Plan A, Plan B and Plan N in the same location.so when you face stimulus A....your poorly connected grey cells cannot bring ONE reaction...because it cannot figureout which value to pick......so it just picks some junkvalue, and you act like nuts like mr 45 did....Data Corruption Issue.
WHY does someone have a low EQ like that.........I Am no psychology guy, but I did learn that it is because of the environmental factors...Parents, Teachers..Friends...Community....

Wait wait wait, before you start cursing the parents for inculcating 'Not so defined' reactions based on a set of 'Values'...we have to think in the other perspective........

Everyone would get a minimum dose form the environment.....we did hear those 'MORAL' stories all throught the childhood.We had a 'Moral' period at school, I juss remembered.I cant recall what we did in the class...it was time to lot of mischief without gettingcaught...that is, IF I GO TO SCHOOL.

the problem is with HONING the emotional quotient.of honing our reactions, of widening our reactions to a particular situation(Stimulus)...of arriving at a best reaction and sticking to it......of constantly revising it( read those moral stories all over again).How do we get a chance? we have to be blessed to be in situations which are trying, which are unique.does not mean you create one such situation for urself, you might never face one either....but juss listening to someone who was in a trying situation, his reaction to it, how he came out if and his value system.

Thats what our Fathers, mothers, Gadhiji's and Sisters are for....to get inspired....to learn from their stimulus reaction...and RESPECT them for that......

Remember my Issue On 'Elders'--if I am convincing enough... it obviously does not make sense to respect someone just based on age..

Issue two: Respect

Here is it, How do we show respect to someone....you know all the conventional ways, dont ya...I still find it very odd when these NorthIndian Guys bend soo 'Casually' and ACT like they are touching the elders feet ( no offence meant).but it jus looks so plastic, juss so cursory and fleeting..that almost all of us forgot why is it done.....( We south indians dont even do that cursory bend anymore..I know...but I do a complete bend,on special occations like birthday and festivals).DO we really 'Mean' anything by doing something like that.Do we really say 'Thanks for whatever you are to me' 'Thanks for all the sacrifices for me' first of all 'Thanks for getting me on to earth'. 'You are inspiring'.........I am not sure if I think it that way when I touch someone's feet......excluding my family, I dint touch the feet of anyone who have been inspiring....whatta pity.some of them are not on earth...but I keep touching the feet of lotta people who are not worth it.......I am being sooo double standard guy......one side Iam 'SHOWING' respect and I do not respect them.....

In my terms, my way of 'Showing' respect is when you get inspired by someone...when you findsomething good about them, a little change it bought in your life......I would show my respect to someone by 'Being' them. by thinking like him, by honing myreactions to react the same way he did............

May be we need different ways of 'Respecting' Gandhiji's and Mother Theresa's.OK..Garlands are beautiful and I love to do that, but may be we need to 'Show respect' by trying to be them.they would feel respected if Mr x wants to do the same things that they did .Dont you thinkyou would feel great if someone comes to you and says ' I did it because I saw you doingit'.
In other words, they buy a T shirt because they saw it on you and they bought it becausethey thougth u have a good taste..........
cmon, u wd be flattered, wdnt you?
Same logic...........may be wee need to learn newer ways of 'Showing respect'......and

we ALSO need to redefine ways of 'FEELING RESPECTED'. by stopping to think your kids respectyou because they touched your feet. By being responsible , so the kids learn to respect youfor that.....
for me, If I give a cup of coffe to my dad, its respecting him........

And my final issue in the whole thing....so do we have to only respect the elders?I already told you........the basis of respect is not having grey material OUTSIDE the head,its having grey material INSIDE the head.And I know a lot of people who have a lot of it, and are younger to me.I have a lot of people in this' younger than me' who are inspiring.Its a really wonderful to feel inspired by them but its little difficult to respect them for that.But I started honing this skill from my engineering, when I met a lot of such people....they showed me wonderful acts of compassion, courage, smartness in the times of challenge and stress.
All that I can say is that its insulting yourselves if we do not respect people just because they are younger.

And my FINAL Issue ( I knowI already told that before).How relevent is the 'definiton' of showing respect. of not 'questioning back' 'not inturrupting'

I have these guys who started working when I was born, some of them in 50's .and I work with them.They are almost my dad's age.They are learning things along with me, they have a lot of experience, but they have to learn new things.and when it comes to learning new things, we both are on the same platform.and both of us are not expereinced in this sense.So you respect him for his past professional experience and in some cases, for his grey cells and grit.
the very fact that he pushed himself in to a completely new field, working with such young crowd, taking orders and exchanging views.. its inspiring....Being able to 'Choose' such change, Accepting it and trying to match the wavelenghts of people half his age.......the effort is commendable.

But me, brought up on years of 'respect your elders' doses....find it difficult to deal with these guys.Its difficult for me to stop them and ask questions.Saying no is a lot more difficult.I cant help it, but I wil teach my kids to be prepared for such situations.

I finally end the Post......

So its not always 'Respect' and 'Elders' .....its 'Inspiration' and 'Grey cells'.

And no one can respect you more than you yourself