Assalamualaikum,
I think we learn with every breath we take in. We are becoming more mature with every step we take, and hopefully becoming wiser as we grow older. What an introduction..hahaha
What is wrong?
For the sake of writing this topic, I define wrong as something not right. What is right then? Is right objective? Can one’s right be others’ wrong? Can both right and wrong exist together at the same time?
I brought some students for a trip last week, and as usual, I talked to them, provoke their thoughts and sometimes even belittle their ideas, just to see how they would react. I never realized the significance of my jokes until just now. They’re 3 students in my car, all of them Kelantanese. I told them that Kelantanese cannot read well. Heck, they cannot read at all, and they denied that. Well I gave them one example, “how do you pronounce T.U.M.P.A.T.” I asked. One of them instinctively answered my question without much thought, “Tupak”, she said. Gotcha! And I gave one example after another and we had good laughs.
Well while driving to my friend’s wedding today, I gave this a little thought. What if the ‘standard’ BM spelled those words wrongly? It’s their language after all, and the ‘standard’ spellings came long after the words existed (another good topic to discuss..hehe) and I arrogantly said that Kelantanese cannot read, while maybe the spelling is not right to begin with.
Or maybe the spellings are right, and the pronunciations are correct. It’s how they pronounce those words, and just because the way I pronounce them different doesn’t make their pronunciations wrong. Maybe we both right though the way I was raised, the pronunciations they made were not. That’s what I meant with both right and wrong coexists. Does that mean that right and wrong are not objective after all? The things we perceive as right and wrong might as well relative. It all depends on the eye of the beholder. It all depends, on the values they’re raised with. It’s not at all fixed.
Then, why should we impose the things we believe as the truth to others. Why do we ignorantly without any thoughts laugh at others when their values seem different than us? For example, we Muslims cannot eat pork. Pork and Muslims are like nemesis. We don’t eat pork, we don’t want to touch pork, and we don’t want to have anything to do with pork. We even offended when we are related in any way with pork. When someone gave us pork as a gift, we say that’s an insult towards Islam as a whole (tho it’s not that relevant). The thing is it’s us who see pork as something that needs to be distanced with. It’s our culture, and we need people to understand and respect that culture. Fair enough.
Then why do we freely insult others’ beliefs? For instance, we have no problem, no guilt whatsoever when we make jokes about Hindus don’t eat meat. Do we really care why they cannot do things we can? We don’t even know why they don’t eat meat. We don’t even care. It’s not our problem. Not affecting our lives.
Guess what, that’s what others thought about our belief. They don’t give a damn. We expect them to know every single thing about us, things that might offend us, but do we care to do the same? We are an arrogant bunch. We think we hold the Ultimate Truth that others’ values are not to be treated as we wish others would do to us. We don’t even dare to question the validity of our faith we inherit from our forefathers, yet we rubbish others’ belief.
I don’t know why my writings lately would somehow converge towards this topic. Back to the right-wrong thingy.
People are afraid to express their ideas because they have no confidence of what they’re going to say. We also are afraid of others saying what we’re saying is wrong. What can we do? Well, we can start from us. Treat people as we want others to treat us. In a discussion, listen to what the others are saying. And by listening I meant, LISTEN. Itching to ditch what they’re saying because you know that’s wrong, or because it’s different from what you think? Be patient. Talk politely after the other party has finished what they’re saying, because we might be as wrong or as right as what the others are saying. When this respect needs is fulfilled, people can express their views freely and openly. We can’t change others, this should all start with us. We should practice to create this environment.
Well then, what can we do when others don’t give the same respect we gave them? One way is to be open to criticism (specially dedicated to me). We cannot be corrected if we don’t do anything wrong. To be corrected, we must do something wrong first. And to do wrong, or to confirm whether what we have is right, it needs bravery. Listen to others and be open to criticism. Easier said than done. Good luck!
Just sharing my (seramas/25) :D :D
p/s – good luck?wahaha, my writings sure is getting weirder.
