Understanding Essay, Research Paper

Understanding

In a world of many different opinions, understanding one another is difficult, but possible. Maybe not always a full understanding, but at least a partial understanding. In order to reach this understanding people must first have a tolerance for one another. Second they must experience what the other person is going through. Last , they must have the willingness to see another persons point of view. In Alfred Lubrano’s essay,”Bricklayer’s Boy,” an example of someone coming to an understanding of someone else is shown between Alfred and his father.

Tolerance of one another is needed for there to be understanding One must acknowledge that others might think differently about your opinions. You don’t have to agree with them, but you can’t force your opinions on others as right. In Lubrano’s essay, the father was a blue collar worker who had worked as a bricklayer for thirty years. He promised himself that he would never let his son pile bricks and blocks into walls for a living (Lubrano 465). When Lubrano completed college and took a job writing for a daily newspaper which paid a little more than bricklaying . His father was outraged that his son didn’t cash in on his “multi-brick” education. But soon his father calms down and shows a little bit of toleration for his son’s decision. He states “This is what he wants,” my father told my mother the day I left for Columbus in my grandfather’s eleven-year-old gray Cadillac. “What are you gonna do?” (466). His father still does not agree with his son’s decision, but accepts that his son is doing what he thinks is right. Lubrano goes on to say, “Eventually, I moved on to a job in Cleveland, on a paper my dad has heard of. I think he looks on it as a sign of progress, because he hasn’t mentioned advertising for a while” (467).This shows us that the father has become more receptive to the fact that his son is a writer making a little more than he does.

Experiencing what others have to go through helps you to understand them. With experiences you are able to often see things in a new light. It becomes easier for you to agree with or at least to tolerate another persons point of view. Lubrano’s father at one time experienced what his son went through. Lubrano states, “My father isn’t crazy about his life. He wanted to be a singer and actor when he was young, but that was frivolous doodling to his Italian family, who expected money to be coming in, stroking the stove that kept hearth fires ablaze. Dreams simply were not energy-efficient. My dad learned a trade, as he was supposed to, and settled into a life of pre-scripted routine” (468). Lubrano’s father knew what it felt like to have a dream and not be able to pursue it because his family didn’t let him. This past experience helped him to tolerate his son’s decision and eventually agree with it.

Lubrano’s father also had to have a willingness to see his son’s point of view. Without this he would never have never been able to see past the

amount of money that his son was making for a living, toward the fact that his son was actually getting paid to do something that he likes doing. This is shown in the last paragraph: “Just then my father turned to me, solemn and intense. His knees were aching and his back muscles were throbbing in clockable intervals that registered in his eyes. It was the end of a week of lifting fifty-pound blocks. “I envy you,” he said quietly. “For a man to do something he likes and get paid for it that’s fantastic” (469). He realizes that his son is living his dream, and he envies him for that.

Once Lubrano’s father decided that he would tolerate his son’s opinion, remembered past experiences, and had a willingness to try to understand his son’s decision he was able to make a change to understanding his son and eventually agree with him.