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When you want to know, how do you find out without being offensive?

Asking other people about their personal experiences is how one learns. There are some things that can not be understood simply by reading about it in a book or online. When you want to know about people and how they think, you must ask a person. But when one approaches another to ask of things they do not know about, they find themselves in a quandary. Is it really, truly, okay to ask these personal things?

Society preaches that you must be respectful in dealing with other people. This is true, especially when you hope to learn something from another person. So, what is the most respectful way of asking a veteran what it was like in a war? How do you ask them what it felt like, what they thought about, what was truly going on, with out angering them? You do not know these things, but wish to understand them. You are trying to feel what they felt and see through their eyes. You want to know, but do not dare ask. Why? It is offensive.

You meet someone who is blind and they make you think. You stop and wonder what that must feel like, to not see. You think about the stereotypes, of course, but you want to know the truth. But is acknowledging their lack of sight and trying to comprehend it offensive? Do you dare risk loosing a friend for the pursuit of understanding? You do not wish to mock them or make them feel insignificant, you just want to reach out and touch the world they live in.

Society has no answer to these questions. Few people want to know. It is as if you are playing a game of chess with very vague rules. You try to understand the rules, the to do’s and the to don’t, but no one understands them either. The rules are up to interpretation and you must make a gamble.

So you stay silent. You do not ask the questions burning in your mind. That bright spark of hope that came when you thought answers were close at hand slowly dies into an ashamed pit in your stomach. How dare you think of even asking something so rude? You trudge on, lost in the illiterate realms of not knowing. Is it better to have thought and not asked than to have asked and offended? You will never be sure.