Respect they say is to be earned as if this is something dependent on something else: It is conditional on something else. With this view, one takes it upon oneself to organise and set the boundaries of the game as one wish. There are demands made from the other in that it is all about expectations, seeking something in return. Do this and then ‘I’ shall abide or if you do not then ‘I’ may decide to carry on in its mode of usual negativity. A far cry from doing things for its own sake. Or respect proper is all about being something done for itself.
The idea that one does something in order to gain something else is repugnant as one is an ignoble, seeking advantages first for one self before trying for that which reflects kindness, and reaching out to others for its own sake. However, this is reflective of current relationships. ‘I love you. You love me. I do things for you. You do things for me’’
Conversely, if the reverse happens then hate is in the air. In relationships this leads to discord, anger hatred, sometimes violence whether verbal or otherwise. Or one may find that a friend of yesterday may become an enemy or be ignored completely so much so that one is blotted out. One only needs to look at a married couple who loved each other previously and the next moment it ends in separation and divorce where often hate emerges and all one remembers is the ‘bad’ that the other has caused. Call it the frailties of existence but where every other keep demanding as an individual or a group such occurrences are common. Respect is a material decode which is always dependent on something else. Verily, this is not respect but what one expects the other or others about him/her to be. Keep to the expectations and one is seen as a hero but somehow miss out once and you are seen as the vile villain forever. This is the ways of the world where trust or other positive vibes does not co-exist for its own sake. There is always an ulterior motive at play in that demands are made and the subject(s) make demands to maintain the ‘respect’ intact.
Or we find that where the ways of the world lack that essential mode then there are inherent problems . The material world is based on a mundane superficial mode of being where relationships are always not of that form which is eternal thereby causing undue expectations and that of getting something in return. The argument may be that the subject of respect is as temporal as the ‘expector’. In a futile world, one may never be as naïve but everything should be vibrant and dependent on something else. It is a question of survival echoing aspect of the survival of the fittest or the idea of winning, winning and winning where the sense of participation for its own sake is inexistent. It is a struggle, a war that keeps going on and on where the subject is entangled in a web of false desires within the material world which has its own agenda based on anger, lust, greed, hatred which are its governing principles; all based on the mundane where one does not relate to others in an authentic mode of being. It is always a negotiated aspect of life as if business comes into the equation even in a relationship. Or one may say that a relationship is measured in terms of gains and losses such that if there is nothing in it for ‘me’ there is no need to carry on. Such are the ways of the world: a world always rampant at deriving benefits for the non-me. There may not be real appreciation as within the conditioned world any other may not be perceived a living warmth for its own sake. To be sure, it is a rascal way of being full stop where it is always about fitting into a box and, fail it by an inch and ‘you’ are seen as enemy number one by the other!
Yet if this is so then the spiritual aspect of one’s being lacks any meaning in life. The impertinent would say that all life is materially conditioned as they do never take heed of that transcendental aspect of one’s being. Whereas it is towards that non material form which adds meaning to all sense of positivity often camouflaged in our way of seeking development from a miserable world where things are viewed in pairs of opposites instead of seeing things as they are.
In such a mode of being one opens up and reaches out to the other not because there is something to be gained but indeed it is a common facticity or dialectics to be so involved where the other is a comrade not because he/she does something for ‘my’ benefit and or would have some impact for me but the other regardless is a warmth. In this mode, respect is accorded to one and all regardless of the in-situation of the other. What we are attempting to communicate is the idea of merely seeing the warmth in all. The impertinent may remind us that one has to wise up in a world where the rogues also thrive at the expense of the naïve and that we need not unduly open up to everyone and that discrimination has its place. Even whilst acknowledging this point, it is also important to bear in mind that the overriding principle is positivity, an inherent quality which helps to be creative whilst its opposite albeit in terms of scepticism is simply a recipe to see oneself as special and everyone else as subservient to the self that one is or false ego, where one abides in the realm of the bodily self as if all and everything else need be so fashioned.
To be sure in such a modal way of being, one is a victim of the material, where it is all about engagement in life as if all are based on supplies and demands. Supply me with love and I am always there for you. Miss me by an inch and I shall not only despise you but become your arch enemy. A conclusive note may be whatever happened to Karuna ( Compassion) and Metta ( loving Kindness) as the Buddha puts it !