Hierarchy of Relationships.

Once we settle down into our allotted seats in a train for a long journey, we look around to see what kind of people we are going to put up with, for the rest of our journey. Our mind starts calculating, tabulating the ‘type’ of people, as they appear to be when we just look at them. Now if somebody smiles lavishly at us, just at the first sight, our mind races to find out whether they are going to ask us to exchange for a more comfortable berth, move away our luggage to some other inconvenient corner etc. Some of us even try to restrict our ‘return’ smile within a safe limit. Later on things may change.
Now if the very same person comes to our workplace, where we are playing the role of a receptionist, we offer the first smile, and they return it with a casual acknowledgement, and both know, that there is no big risk involved in this smile.
These are small examples of the beginning of a relationship. At work place, a new comer, a new recruit, finds it the first concern to decide the hierarchy of relationship before even settling down into the job. People who attend to calls during a emergency(fire, earthquake, inundation etc), do not get this chance to pick and choose, and have to rush to save any person they come into contact first, and then look at salvaging the material things, and the building itself at last.

What kind of concepts we hold, in deciding our own private list of hierarchy of relationships would eventually decide the very quality of life! That is why, perhaps, the concept of ‘arranged’ marriages is not able to hold in the present day life. The support of large families to give ‘structural’ corrections when needed, to the ‘smooth’ flow of this relationship is absent, and there is not much scope for amicable adjustments. Or is it that the present ‘pattern’ of nurturing the relationship creeps into the ‘way of choosing’ a life partner?

Then, when a child is born, how does the child begin relating to us. No smile, no language, no self awareness for a while etc. We think we are ready for a healthy relationship. But if the child itself is not quite healthy, then how does this relationship take shape? What about the next child? What about the grand-parent’s view towards the child? How does a kindergarten teacher begin relating with the fresh batch of tiny tots? A nurse had to re-arrange the hierarchy of patients according to the rate of recovery, intensity of ailment, vulnerability of relapse etc (in an ideal situation, if it is an ideal nurse).

Then the social relationships. A friend’s friend remains a friend only till the friend remains a friend, in the normal course. This pattern is common even in case of relatives through ‘family’ relationships (in-laws, cousins, likely-claimants-of-share-in-property, ‘non-performing-assets’, etc).
When we suddenly find an insect taking a casual stroll over our body, the first thing that occurs to us is whether it is going to cause any harm, injury, hazard etc. Our mind looks at our ‘established’ list of relationships we have stored in our memory to ‘judge’ how fast we are going to react (in fortunate cases, act).

Technically, the meaning of ‘hierarchy’ runs as …… (the dictionary meaning):
“A hierarchy is an arrangement of objects, people, elements, values, grades, orders, classes, etc., in a ranked or graduated series.”

My point here is, are we aware, what is happening within us, when we lay down a ‘procedure’, a structure, and, do we re-assess’ our concepts, to evolve as a better human being, in the process of re-aligning our relationships, its hierarchy, with people and things around?
Regards,
Psn (13th February, 2010)