27^th Aug 2014_3

Or more to the point, other people! They are everywhere. I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for other people. If you’re of certain faiths, there were two people, and then had two sons. And then they had children, and their children had children. Oh! There’s something wrong there. Or perhaps, these stories value the female gender less than the males. This rationalization seems to fit most of the religions. Unless they are virgins. Religions like virgins, but not ladies menstruating, or being pregnant.

Many people think there must have been a first human. But any understanding of biology would say otherwise. I don’t even need to mention evolution. This should be accepted knowledge. Everywhere, in every school people should know how we got here, but they don’t. Luckily, evolution doesn’t require a knowledge of the process.

People can do amazing things. They can compose music, paint, save lives, bring other people in to the world, make other people the happiest people in the world, and many many other things me an my imagination will never come up with.

Amazing things can also be amazingly bad to each other. This can be physical bullying, being rude, greedy, abusing, mentally bullying, indoctrination, brain washing, stealing, killing, starting wars, and I’m realising that the bad list is becoming much longer than the good things.

I have to work. And work with people, I do. But I don’t know them, and they don’t know me. A friend is just a stranger until you get to know them, but not every stranger you meet will become a friend. We look at each other seeing how they act, listening to what they say, and deciding whether that is a person you would let in to your circle. Of course, this is a two-way street, and you may not fit their friend criteria. This is perfectly fine in a social environment. We can be perfectly polite, and the actions of one are unlikely to affect the other. If they do, we can walk our different ways.

There are situations where two people briefly meet. For example, in a shop were a shop assistant is paid to be nice to you, or a doctor patient relationship. In these situations there is an assumed inequality in the interactions. The customer is a higher level than the shop assistant, and the patient is lower than the doctor. There is no competition here and the social setting has been set. There is a penalty for either side behaving badly, so we stick to the social norm and do what needs to be done.

Other situations where we are force together could be family, but that is a subject in itself. Or work.

Work is a completely different situation. Here we are judged by many things, such as does this person make me look good? What can I get out of this person? Will this person make me look bad (either by not being up to the job, or being good at the job), do I fit in to the team, or is there someone else I know who could be in the team instead? In this situation we can be shot at in all directions, unless we fit in and can do the job we are asked to do.

I feel this is incomplete, but it is my third rambling of the day, and I have caught up with missed days.