warning: this is a mindless rant whereby i, by the name of harley, will vent my spleen and everything in between. so, be forewarned.
malay, a race full of culture and traditions...we are also a race full of bullshits and wasteful words of wisdoms...one of these bullshits-and-wasteful-words-of-wisdom is 'respect the elders (no matter what provocations)'...i believe the reasoning behind this brilliant words-of-'wisdom' is the fact that elders are elder (age-wise), thus they have vast collections of wisdom through personal experience in life, well as compared to us the youngsters the midgets-in-years-and-experience...
while i believe this is true, to certain extent, and various other cultures also have similar idiom and belief, there is also the 'lesson-not-learned-factor'...let me explain that in details...how many of us have make various mistakes, only to repeat the same offense in future date?...well...there you go...i admit we do learn from our own mistakes but i also like to point out that there are also many mistakes that we keep on repeating without learning from previous experiences...
we are human, we make mistakes and we do make the same mistakes again and again...so...my whole point from this long long long rant is that not every elder is wise...yes, we should all respect everyone, disregarding their age, because well, we live on the same soil, breathe the same air, eat the same food (unless you don't eat) and yada yada yada...respect is mutual...we give them, we also have to earn them back...
this whole case point is dedicated to one of my 'dearest' elderly family member...she (ooopppsss, i gave that one away) is the most annoyingly stupid elderly woman on earth...she doesn't respect my family especially her own son, my father (opppsss, another hint giveth away)...i don't really care about how she never respect my mom and us the children (well i do but we are not important enough in her hierarchy of 'important family members', so, i will strive not to care like my sisters and brother)...but i really care about my baba...he is a loving father who dedicate his time and resources to us, the children...an apt example of fatherly dedication: me...
anyway, she had insulted, demoralized, bad-gossiping, looked-down-upon us the whole family so many times, we all already lost count...one of the things that i will always remember: she will tell to everyone (who may or may not want to know/listen) that she got '2 precious brilliant sons who are great doctors'...what about my father?...what about my father who make time to visit her and take her to breakfast every week? (when her doctor sons usually probably visit her 2 times in 3 months)...what about my father who forced my mother to take care of her when she was in the hospital when she didn't even care about my mother when she gave birth to us or visit my mother when she was hospitalized repeatedly in the past?...what about my father who helped her a lot of times financially when her business was in trouble?...what about my father who...anyway, you get my point...
i simply don't respect her...i never actually respect her...she is not a respectable person...she is not wise aka stupid as she always put her 'doctor sons' on pedestal while disregarding my father who loves and respects her...she always expect us to put her on priority while she never even give us a glance when her rich sons are around...while we are not rich, we love each other (excluding 'her royal snooty highness')...well, i sound bitter but i am bitter...while i managed to forget about her 99% of the times when i was in auckland, i can't exactly ignore her when she is being slapped on my face 24/7 here at home...this is a great example where the idiom 'respect your elders' doesn't actually work for all...this particular elder doesn't deserve respect...
