Wouldn't it be a fair statement if we name our  behaviour today as the accumulation of our ancestors' moral judgments, deeds, and values. Is it not like a snowball that rolls and gets bigger every day. I am told that I  carry many of my mother's attitudes and behaviours. Maybe my mom learned similar behaviours  from her father. The way that my grandparents developed their conceptions and how they raised my mother might be well connected with the events they were subjected to.

To what extent did the schools we were educated in contribute to our judgments? The friendships we made as we were growing. Can we disconnect our present thoughts to yesterday’s experiences? Is it fair to blame ourselves for the things we didn’t do? It really seems  that our personalities are an accumulation of  past and present moments that somehow form our judgments. Our today’s judgments might well be rooted in  events we were exposed to as we were youngsters. Some of them stick especially to our moral and daily judgements even though we are unaware of them. Once in a chat, a friend of mine told me that he had started to become very cautious when he learned that his friend disclosed one of his secrets to their primary school teacher. To him, this became the moment that he came to the idea of never disclosing anything to anyone. What he went through in his childhood bolsters his  judgment regardless of  however he formed and kept his cautiousness.

In many regions of the Middle East, the elder brother is raised as a semi-father. He is the respected one, and expected to lead the family in the absence of the father. The elder brother knows this role from the very beginning. Because the whole community takes part in this process either by reaffirming-words or their attitudes they remind the elder brother that he is a semi-father. There are probably various reasons for the whys and wherefores  of such a culture, which is to give a semi-father’s role to the elder brother.

A camper we met in southern France was from the Middle East, just like us. After generous exchanges of food, we invited him for dinner. He was raised and born in France and his English was very French-accented. Adil said that my father was forgotten in the family as he was the youngest brother. That meant less attention was paid to Adil’s father and dad found such a culture an unfair and lawless treatment. By sharing this experience with his kids, the father was somehow reaffirming that he would not treat his kids in this manner. Nonetheless, Adil felt frustrated as he was exposed to the same treatment that his father underwent. Adil was sharing his father’s fate: his needs were rarely met and his concerns were not taken into account. To safeguard the empires not falling apart in the Middle East, the throne (elder brother) was raised and educated as a predecessor of the empire. That norms exercised in the dynasties might perhaps have some reflections on ordinary families like Adil's family too. The young camper in the south of France was conveying the message that our own ingredients come with us wherever we go. But does that mean our ingredients are unchangeable?