We stand on the shoulders of giants: our elders and ancestors. Those who came before us and blazed the path that has allowed the current generations to push even further in the quest for a better life for one’s self and for humanity. The gray hair and weary countenance shrouds a kinetic power; an ability to move the obstacles gently to the side reach beyond, and an ability to move people to stride forward.  These are the people that have lived their lives spreading the wisdom they have earned, changing the world one person at a time. We must honor our elders. We must honor our ancestors. For it is their knowledge, passed down, that has given us our strength and our resilience, our love of life, and a desire to live in peace with the world around us.

As I grow and mature, I notice so much about myself that comes from my parents. An expression, a motion of the hand, a certain posture when sitting, or the conflagration of passion when something interests me.  These are the things that one inherits from one’s parents, because we learn how to interact with the world by imitating, at first. We spend a good deal of time seeing the world through their eyes. Our primary, and most useful, form of education comes from them. It is therefore logical that a child will have many of the little personality quirks of the parents.

That being said, we no longer honor our elders and ancestors. The number of children developing with no respect for their parents, or elders, is growing. If there is no respect for the parents, then there is no respect for the elders and ancestors of the family. With that comes a broken link in what would otherwise be an indissoluble bond of respect and love. The destruction of the family design is leading to the destruction of our societies, and subsequently, humanity. At that point, it’s all over. The beauty of what we can achieve as a species, our potential, is spent in material pursuits. Why? Because we forget where we came from, we forget who we are.

We have forgotten the faces of our fathers and our mothers. Thus, we have forgotten our own faces. We do not know who we should be. The sense of individuality has completely usurped the sense of community. This has had a devastating effect on the psychology of today’s world. For it is the community that gives you a sense of purpose. One must not accomplish feats solely for the accolade. One must achieve for the betterment of the community. At the end of the day, regardless of what profession you choose, what you do affects everyone around you. If one forget one’s ancestors, one forgets one’s self and one’s community. What is one then left with? Isolation and despair.

I know on whose shoulders I stand on, within my family and without. I must honor their memory by shining as brightly as I can. I must continue to walk the path they have revealed before my coming to this world. I will not deny them, although I may defy them. For I owe my very existence to their decisions, decisions that have brought a very specific set of circumstances for my essence to inhabit this form. I revere them and in that I revere myself as an extension of whom and what they are or were. Who I am is intrinsically tied to those who came before me. I am an individual within a collective. I must play my part.