Why do members of the same family end up not getting along?
As I look around me, I realize that all families have their problems, their unspoken words, their stories, their dark sides, their resentments engraved in stone etc. Why so much hate?
Family relationships are imposed, not chosen
Unlike friends, family members are imposed on us. It is birth that conditions the very existence of these relationships. And like anything that is imposed, it ends up being a burden. We may be from the same family, share the same blood and in some way the same culture, but we are nonetheless different, by our characters, our tastes and our sensitivity. These differences, which at the beginning create a tasty spice between the relations, become in the long run sources of dissension, time only accentuating this chasm.
Blood is not enough to create strong bonds
Each of us is defined by our genetic heritage, our values, our way of seeing life, our relationship to work, to money and many other things. Our DNA, although it conditions a part of our behavior, it alone cannot define who we are entirely. We are much more a being of culture than of nature. As time goes by, it is the culture in which we are immersed that will shape us to the point where the genetic marks have less impact on the reality of our existence. In the end, the cells of our body will have the power to influence us for a while, but afterwards, it is our choices and our efforts that will define us more.
What we hate is this other self
There is also something quite paradoxical when it comes to human relationships. Very often, it is oneself that one hates in the other. The biggest arguments often emerge because we can’t stand the mirror that is the other person. In order to hate, we must somehow identify something we hate in someone. To identify it, you have to have a little bit of that thing so that it resonates and erupts in the form of anger or hate. Someone who never lies cannot have a visceral hatred for liars, it is something foreign to them. On the other hand, someone who lies from time to time can rebel against lies because they remind him of what he is sometimes. The lie is an unbearable reminder of what he or she used to be, and this he or she cannot tolerate. Very often, what one hates therefore, it is this other self that one would like to forget. The hatred of others often proceeds from a lack of love for oneself. The family, by the similarities that it engenders, is also the link where this potential narcissistic anger manifests itself.
The silent ones shape the world
An empty barrel makes more noise than a full one
Those who make a fuss and a racket wherever they go do not manage to change things in depth. They remain on the surface. Their shouts and scandals disturb only for a moment the natural tranquility in which the world is immersed. If on the surface they are active, we tend to overestimate their capacities and at the same time underestimate the potential of those who are hardly heard.
Silence has a much greater echo
A rough sea is the result of a disturbance, whether it is produced by the wind or by the waves. An oily sea is the product of the absence of one of these elements. It is much harder to maintain a calm sea than it is to allow yourself to become agitated. The same is true of the human mind. If you can clear your mind and achieve inner peace, it is the result of a battle won against the untimely elements. A serene mind is much deeper than a stormy one.
If of course it is not heard, the silent and serene mass is the one that really contributes to the stability of the world. Disturbed spirits act like the wind that ripples the surface of the sea without threatening the tranquility of the ocean floor.
How to educate oneself in the 21st century?
A new century announces a new paradigm, that of the decentralization of knowledge. The ways of learning have always been centralized because of technology and the political role of education. Today, we can learn in an alternative way because technology makes it possible. If you aspire to learn in the 21st century, you will have to understand that the role of education will no longer be to find a job but to train yourself to become an active member of the civilizational change whose first pillar will be the harmony between humans, nature and the living. The coming years are like an equation to be solved with humans as the main unknown. It is above all the general level of human consciousness that will determine the level of harmony in which we will live. The earth is only the reflection of what men have wanted to do with it, the people in power having of course more weight on the general destiny of humanity. A lot of power has been put in the hands of people who do not take harmony into account in their logic of calculation. It is not with an accounting plan that we will be able to create a better world. Moral progress is needed, and this progress must be accompanied by a real empathy for the living, that is to say, for everything that may experience suffering.
For a new world, we need a new man
As you can see, the key to the climate problem lies in the moral quality of the people who inhabit the planet. Insensitive people can only create a senseless world. If everyone makes a commitment to continuous improvement, we can see a dramatic transformation of the world within a generation. To be able to influence mentalities, one must already be able to apply to oneself what one would like to see manifested outside oneself. There is no greater change than the one that takes place inside. If you change the bulb, you change the light. On a global scale, we educate children through fear or more or less implicit threat. We study out of fear of unemployment or precariousness. It is necessity that pushes us to make choices until we become aware later – when we get some material security – that we have not made the best choices. To dream of a better world, we must dare to continue dreaming. This implies not to extinguish this flame that burns in the child by a rigid and dogmatic education.
We cannot solve a problem with the same level of consciousness that caused it. Albert Einstein
The situation in which we find ourselves is the result of past generations. We cannot change the course of history if we foolishly repeat the same teaching system that caused it. History will only repeat itself. So we have to break the chain to be able to think outside the box.
How can we change things if the adults responsible for the problem are the ones educating us?
It is an eternal restart, the following generations resemble the past generations because of the education which is often similar to an indoctrination. To break this chain, the system must be centered on the child’s capacities so that he can express his noblest qualities and make them grow.
Education must take into account humanist and environmentalist figures and base their teaching on their approach.
The bad habit of having something for nothing
Laziness is not so problematic if it is not accompanied by other evils. Wanting to avoid effort is not fundamentally bad, as long as it pushes us to be smarter. The main concern is that a lazy person necessarily needs things to live, like everyone else, and often even wants to satisfy desires that in themselves could be called superficial because they are not related to survival. When one is lazy, one hopes to put the burden of one’s subsistence on others and much more than that. We want to have something without being able to want to provide something in return. We break the universal law of reciprocity. When we get into the habit of harming others, we lose our dignity and gradually turn into a vile person. Effort is necessary for our respectability. Man is a social animal, that is why it is necessary that he is able to offer something to others, it does not have to be material, but it has to be something, otherwise it is called theft.
A better understanding of traditional societies
Pre-industrial societies, whether Asian or Western, are based on reciprocal exchanges and complementarity. At the top of the social ladder, we find the priests or monks, then the warriors and princes, then the merchants and craftsmen and finally the peasants. Each group gives something in order to enjoy the benefits of social integration. The monks offer their blessings while the warriors and princes give their blood in exchange for the protection of the group. Craftsmen and merchants offer their skills and ingenuity while peasants give their sweat. Everything works relatively well as long as everyone fulfills their contract. Beyond the famine that had been a catalyst for the French Revolution, there was above all the refusal of the warrior class (that of the nobles) to continue to assume their full responsibility in the art of war. The people were dying on the battlefields while the generals (they nobles) were watching from afar. The spirit of sacrifice had been lost, which precipitated the development of this feeling of injustice because the contract was broken. The nobles wanted something without sacrificing anything, such a situation could not continue.
