Respect.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that came before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

- George Orwell

I stumbled upon this quote while visiting the Wikiquote homepage today, and I couldn't help but notice how true this was, especially after finding out that the man who said it had died in 1950. This statement is one for the ages - it has always been true, and perhaps always will be. Unfortunately.

Indeed, having spent time in a boarding school I know quite a bit about how applicable Orwell's observation is in real life. Juniors rebel against their seniors, while said seniors try to put the juniors in their place. These kind of situations are very common, and arise in hostels all over the world.

However, being an open-minded person who'd spent three years in a regular secondary school, I never really saw the point of it all. Not at first, anyway. I mean, back at Bukit Indah it didn't matter how old you were and which Form you were in, everyone was treated equally and talked to in the same way. And suddenly, on my first day in Rembau the younger kids called me 'Abang'. It was something that took some getting used to.

It took me a while to realize that, socially, things were going to be different. It seemed that, by virtue of being born a few years earlier, my batchmates and I were the kings of the hostel. The juniors would do our every bidding without question. It was as if we had some divine right to order the younger ones around. This was the way it was supposed to be, as I was told by friends who had lived in hostels before. They had once been slaves to their own seniors, and now they were enjoying their new positions in the social hierarchy. This new system was one that taught all those who came through it that in life, you have to start at the very bottom before you can make it to the top.

Of course, every system has its rebels. As did ours. They simply did not understand the system, the very same one that is, and has always been in practice in pretty much every single boarding school in the country, maybe even the whole world. They disobeyed orders, mocked their seniors, acted with disrespect, and in short challenged the whole concept of seniority. It was a rebellion that created a rift between us and them, one that neither side seemed intent on fixing.

Yes, we tried to patch things up. At least I did, anyway. Treated them like mature adults, I did. I was friends with them in those early days, and we had a healthy rivalry on the football pitch. We talked, we joked. I even taught one to solve a Rubik's Cube. You could say that I kinda saw them as my own younger brothers.

But I was wrong to treat them like mature adults, as it turned out. Mature adults would respect a person's right to a good night's sleep. Mature adults would know that rules exist for a reason. Mature adults would know that when the nice guy is seriously pissed at you, it means that you've really done something wrong.

I'm a fairly mild-mannered person myself, but the one thing that really gets my goat is when people disrespect their elders. That's one line I would never cross, unless I really have to.

Anyway, solving the problem was simple - I simply stopped caring. There was no more we're-all-mature-adults-here crap, I just considered the rebels to be young, immature children who didn't respond to reason. And I was happy. They could all get struck by lightning and I probably wouldn't have cared in the slightest. If   I had viewed them as my own flesh and blood before, you could say that I'd now disowned them. But not caring anymore didn't mean I felt nothing - never before had I felt so betrayed in my entire life.

It all seems like such a long time ago now. Apologies have been exchanged since then, and no matter how forced and insincere they may have seemed, they were at least something. However, completely forgiving them may still take a while yet. The wounds have mended, but the scars still remain.