Our Desk | About the rules… And the exceptions

Renato Marques

As someone once said, “the less educated people are, the more rules they have.” This quote suggests that education is somehow opposed to regulations. Is this really true? I wonder…
But before I start, I must say that I originally thought about writing something different. My idea was to simply make a list of rules, or better, prohibitions in the style of: “Things people cannot do in Macau’s public swimming pools,” but since this column is limited to 600 words, I quickly changed my mind as I wouldn’t be able to fit in even half of them.
Still, I kept the topic on rules: the rules we follow, the ones we don’t follow, the ones we request legislators to add and the ones we simply want to scrap from the regulation books.
Business magnate Richard Branson once said, “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” His different approach suggests that experience plays a main role in the learning process.
In my opinion, it is all about respect and it does not matter if you are talking about  rules for swimming pools, school activities, work, relationships, religion, sports or politics.
You can have totally different visions of the world, but if you respect the viewpoints of others, even if you don’t agree with them – I would say you had walked halfway toward your goal already.
And thinking about this, I would say that what is lacking most of the time is not rules but respect for others in the understanding that “me” is as important as “you,” and “me,” together with “you,” are stronger and more capable than “me” and “you” alone.
So the problem is not the fact that you are drinking or eating something in a public space, let us say a public swimming pool, for example. But instead, if the way you do it (drink or eat) causes harm, discomfort or stress or any kind of negative consequences for the others, then it is a problem.
The same applies for a bus frequency timetable, which may state that a bus would come every 10 minutes. This is not because it is a rule for it to come every 10 minutes but because people are waiting for the bus every 10 minutes in order to go on with their lives and if it does not come on time but 20 or 25 minutes late, that might be enough to create a problem.
The same happens for the “noise law,” which was created to give some “peace” to people, especially in residential areas. The law is defined by rules that state the amount of noise you can or cannot make within a certain time. It is great because it is “universal,” but it does not take into consideration that people do not always work during the day and rest during the night, working during the weekdays and rest on the weekends. There are exceptions, and in this city, I would say that the exceptions should be in a very high number since many people work on shifts at all time of the day.
Well, in that case, we need to add something else that needs to be respected.
In the novel “Sense and Sensibility” by Jane Austin written in 1811, Elinor and Marianne Dashwood are two sisters living with the consequences of life (and death). The sisters’ highly contrasting personalities separate them making one very rational and the other very emotional. The problem is only solved in the end when both of them find their own… balance.