I wad some power the giftie gie us To see oursel's as others see us. It would from many a silly notion free us !!

We try hard to understand how our children seem to have such short attention spans especially when it comes to reading a book. Their need for immediate gratification means that the slow unfurling of a story line, as we read and turn page after page, is out of character with today's young.
Of course they are hardly to blame given the incomplete messages that today's news media project, each hour, on the hour. Stories of blight and corruption across the world, set in gory detail only to be replaced by "another crisis" from somewhere else within 24 hours.
Our view of the world, through media reportage, is one of on-going trauma which makes us all feel complacent as we sit in the chair behind the double glazing.
The human race is clearly connected genetically but we celebrate our own ethnicity and consider the difference between us.   Much of our problem lies in this mental condition, of how we visualise ourselves and build a platform of self indulgence, ignoring the wealth of diversity that identifies the rest of the world.
People from other countries bring, through the life experience and the environment they grew up in, a different complexion to virtually every aspect of our own set of opinions. Whist the complexion differs, as you talk, you discover you have much more in common than you could imagine, given the distance and the cultural or political differences of each others background.
There are generally many common values, yes tainted by the pressure of each persons way-of-life and up bringing but remarkably similar in their root values.
We should learn to celebrate our commonality and recognise we all have so much in common, value these similarities and down grade the difference.