Familiarity breeds contempt or admiration?

It is said that when someone sees the same people each day, they are started to be taken for granted. And because we are consciously or sub consciously aware of this saying our behavior seems like so to us and to them as well. But in reality these people become a part of that person’s life.

One becomes accustomed to their everyday presence and availability as is to oneself. Thus having knowledge about one another’s interest, dislike, weakness, strength and peculiarity of character is evident. This state of well knowing somebody is termed as ‘familiarity’.

The persons finding themselves in the above mentioned state are familiar. Setting aside contempt or admiration grows out of this familiarity ,the initial lines of this piece claim that being part of one’s life is derived from familiarity , that is seeming not strange or unusual when you are accepted as normal or when you accept someone as normal, is the outcome of familiarity. To  make the statement further clear, acceptance of someone as part of your life demands first being familiar with that person. Considering this claim as true I would proceed towards the main points of my discussion.

As the proverb goes, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, we cannot altogether neglect the truth in this saying which is recognized through centuries of experimentation and experience of generation. Its originators have based their opinion on the fact that despite the long held relationship there comes such moments when you wish to have never known the other completely, when you wish to have maintained your initial impression of the person in question. And in this way despite your acceptance of the person as part of your life you start regretting and very much want to detach yourself from the relation.

There can be scores of reasons behind losing admiration and respect for someone familiar. Let me put here that parents are exception, for our familiarity with them is very deep rooted. The only face we see after our very birth is that of them. If despite this some parents lose respect of their children for some reason or other, I dare say it may be in very rare cases. It is very possible that the person turns out to be the opposite of what you thought of him or her. You may find someone bad tempered in the course of time or irritating or notorious or simply boring. You may want the other to behave in a certain way but you find yourself in dismay because the other is peculiar and individual in action out of nature.

Familiarity may reveal the real face of both the parties’ genuine behavior, attitude which they initially have glossed to impress upon the other, or if without one’s own attempt one succeed in winning the other’s favor, still there are very possibilities of his or her growing stale too, for the desire of something new, fresh, exciting and new is in the very vein of human nature.

Thus in such situations time passes, you remain together with the only feeling and respect for the association there exist, with memories of your once nice thought and with regrets for your once ‘green  judgment’.

But it will be a serious injustice with some natures if we admit the above mentioned facts as the ultimate truth. In fact there is always the other side of a picture. To be more lucid, there are instances of admiration and respect nourishing as familiarity grows. So diverse is the creation of Almighty that no single soul’s attributes are shared by another, yet all are human and live under the same one sky.

So different are human natures that one maintains the same qualities till the end. Neither misery can bring frown on their face nor do riches turn their heads. Along with their consistent outlook, their nature won’t permit them to think that every day is like every other day rather they try to strike a different note each day, with the result that feelings other than contempt start to spring for them. Through their impressive behavior and achievements, their resilience, loyalty, compromising nature and above all their sense of acknowledging relations, they win value, respect and admiration in their credit.

Thus familiarity breeds contempt in case of shallow characters’  association with one another, when none of the party has the patience to tolerate the other, when none has the feeling for their good old days when they were nice with one another at least in happy ignorance.