The Other…

How we perceive a person will determine our interaction with them. This is true in friendships, marriage, business and any other environment where humans must interact with each other. Martin Buber puts it this way:

That people can no longer carry on authentic dialogue with one another is not only the most acute symptom
of the pathology of our time, it is also that which
most urgently makes a demand of us. I believe,
despite all, that the peoples in this hour can enter into dialogue, into a genuine dialogue with one another.
In a genuine dialogue, each of the partners, even
when he stands in opposition to the other, heeds, affirms, and confirms his opponent as an existing other.”

This is about human dignity. This is about valuing our collective humanity. This is about the other.