I was always thinking about one thing - what if we would take a newborn boy, let's call him Sam, and place him in some sort of artificial town (like Truman Show) and instead of showing that newborn all the normal rules of life, we would make him do ridiculous things. For instance, could we trick Sam to always walk backward? Could we not teach Sam how to lie and get him tell the truth all the time? Could we make him believe that humans get married to remote controls (well, that would be nothing new to some people...)? And the list goes on and on and on.
After Sam is fully grown with a very strange and different perception of life, would he be able to adapt to our world? Or it would seem like a ridiculous and stupid place? "Who the hell walks ahead?" Sam would say when he saw all the people. This question always boggles me... because I kind of know that we could shape Sam just the way we want and he wouldn't be able to do it. So why are we still so ignorant to think that it was us who shaped how we think? I mean, what if we are living in an artificial town called "Earth" and someone is laughing at our illogical set of rules?
Where am I heading? Well, this radical example of poor Sam was a way to show that we are all influenced by the others, and we cannot do a thing about that. That is why what is normal in one culture, might sound stupid to another. Can any traditions be more right than the others? Well, I don't think so. After all, they are all artificial and fake.