Respect. What does it mean? What does it represent? This word has been thrown around for millennia and most people do not know or understand it nearly as well as they think they do. Today, I will share with you what I think of this word, and what it means. And, much more importantly, what it does.
Over one hundred billion people have lived on this planet, Earth. One hundred billion of the most fascinating creatures that have ever lived in our known universe. Each of them has been classified and judged by their own race, labeled before they even get a chance to prove themselves. But do these labels really do or mean anything?
A person has an incredibly powerful ability called choice. Humanity has been able to strengthen this the most out of every living being on the planet, and yet we restrain ourselves by it. For every single possible outcome, there is an infinitesimal amount of choices, but we only come up with a few. We restrain ourselves because some of these ideas seem outrageous, preposterous. We have this notion called impossibility that we cling to every day, but does this even exist? Is the impossible impossible?
We define ourselves with limits. We believe that some tasks are just out of reach. Yet despite this, we manage to amaze ourselves every day. Not very long ago we thought it was impossible to transport via flight, and even more so to do large scale transportation; but we do. We thought we could not go into space, but we did. We set these limits not as something to look at, but something to reach. We set ourselves impossible tasks because we can. We have moved farther than we could ever believe, and are going beyond that. We are living the impossible. We are living the possible.
So how does this tie in with respect? We say we live in a limited space, and yet we can expand this space, what does this mean? Simply put, we have no limits aside from one, and this one has been beat before: time. We are born, we live, and we die; yet many have lived on. Early philosophers such as Plato, Socrates, Aristotle are still alive today through their teachings. We stand beside rulers as we learn about what they did, and we ride beside the heroes of ancient times. These people are still alive despite them dying thousands of years ago. They live on. Unfortunately, there are many who do not. Billions of names and stories lost throughout lifetime, forgotten forever. But are they really gone?
These names were called both good and evil, but what is good and evil? To one side, their leader is good, but to the other that same leader is evil. One name that stands out most is one owned by a certain German artist, Adolf Hitler. The majority of the world saw him as evil, yet some still saw him as good. He was trying to bring his country back into greatness, but through the death and torment of millions. But is he evil? Yes, he killed millions, but he did not do it to kill millions. As I said, he was trying to bring his country back into greatness much more than was his desire to kill. Let me iterate this strongly, although, this is no excuse for what he did. But still, what am I getting to? If a man was possible of convincing himself that a great evil is what is right, what is stopping that same man from convincing himself a great good is right?
As I said, every person has a power inside them, a potential if you would. It is possible of both great good and evil, so which is chosen? In order to answer this, I will look at history and keep it short. Over the centuries, rulers have gotten more powerful and benevolent. There are rulers who tend to believe they have more power than they actually do, and care less for their people (namely North Korea). But no one sees these rulers as great leaders, but rather as oppressors. Simply put, as time goes on, leaders become more good.
What does this all have to do with respect? Why am I skirting around the topic? Every person has this potential inside of them, and just because of this, every person is capable of doing greater things. In the current times, some people refer to respect as being earned, but I disagree. Just by the fact that any living person is capable of being a hero, I give every single person the most amount of respect I possibly can. Every person is equal in my eyes, regardless of what they have done, are doing, or will do. Every single person is possible of great change, even if it is not needed. Every person can be a hero. Every person matters. Every person has love, hope, understanding, knowledge, beauty, good, evil, greatness, heroism, strength, sadness, happiness, and millions of others. Every person may not be the same, but this does not mean they should not be treated as different.
Before moving on, I would like to say something that some people may eventually ask. Many of my writings may seem not thought out, or missing points. This is done on purpose. Everything I write, I write as if I am talking to another person. I do not go back and change what I wrote, everything I write is as I am thinking it. I do this because I want people to ask questions, to challenge me (which is why I put #challengeme in the tags). Through this, we can learn better together as a whole, and have a better understanding of what we discussed.