Understanding

For me, people's attitude toward understanding is critical. Do they want to understand, or not? And for many people, the answer is No - they do not understand, and they do not want to understand.

This question has to be clarified, however - what kind of understanding are we talking about? Understanding of what?

The Big Question is always - what kind of world do we want to build? And the answer depends on what people actually do - not what they say they want to do.

The perfect example of this was the Great Society proposed by LBJ - that produced huge advances in Civil Rights in the South, rights that had been neglected ever since the Civil War. But right after this, Americans had their Vietnam War, where the rights of the Vietnamese (and the soldiers drafted to fight them) were ignored. And most Americans could not see the difference between the two attitudes. One was constructive, and the other was destructive.

They were determined to not understand - anything this important. They could understand little things - but not big things. And sometimes - not even the little things, that make up the big things.

Let me give you another example. A family from San Salvador set up a Pupusa stand on weekends. They are poor, and I want to help them - so I buy a pupusa. Yesterday, I stopped by their stand at 10:30, but they were not ready yet. I came back at 2 PM, to get a pupusa - but they did not have the ingredients on hand to make them. They went into a panic mode, and ran off to get the makings, so they could make one for me - while I waited patiently, and wondered what was going on in their heads.

The husband speaks some English, so I became acquainted with their history. They were refugees from a civil war, that had immigrated to Costa Rica, illegally - and like living here. But they do not know how to run a business - and frankly, do not like to work! They do not understand - that to run a business, they have to have the supplies on hand to do this. And they have to be willing to work at running their business - and improving on it.The business is not going to do this for them - they have to do it themselves.

If people cannot understand their world - their world cannot understand them - and will get rid of them.