so it's been quite some time since i've posted to my blog. here's hoping i can get back to it.
lately i've been reading a number of articles written by my friends who've recently joined me in the "third decade of your life club" and the majority of them seem to read as eulogies. frankly, when someone reflects on their lives the way i've been doing so lately, i wonder if i could really do any better. i guess we'll see by the end of this post as to whether i've joined them or beat them.
i've been 30 now for half a year and in this year i've had some pretty amazing things happen to me. i've gotten what i believe is my dreamiest of jobs, i've made more new and awesome friends in this year than i have in the last 5 and i think i can finally say that after actually weighing consequences i make decisions and actually follow through with most of them. trust me that is a big thing! i've learned a fair bit about perception and observation, and moreover i've learned that how we use our words have a tremendous amount of power over people - but also what we say really shouldn’t.
i used to never want to say anything absolutely for fear that i may change or that circumstances will change and that my previously well thought out opinions would come back to haunt me. for so long i would preach about change yet there was that part of me that feared changing at all so that i wouldn’t look or sound stupid.
well, i’ve come to the realization that its ok to have regrets because at one point they were what we desired the most. i’ve realized that we’re always changing and our views change with us over time.
so here’s my grandiose absolute (for right now) observation.
it’s ok to judge people. yup. it’s perfectly ok to judge someone based on blanket first impressions. what’s not ok is to condemn them on a blanket first impression. i used to think that it’d be wrong to judge someone summarily on first glance because we can’t possibly know their back story to see what led them to that decision or state of being. and a lot of that is true. but then let’s factor in statistics and probability.
if i see some white guy wearing a ratty plaid shirt with stupidly baggy jeans and dread locked hair i’m going to assume with a quick judgement call based on only my observations and experience that most dread locked white guys smokes pot. yes, i concede that maybe he doesn’t but i’ll wager that people who subscribe to that style of dress also subscribe to the lifestyle whereby casual drug use is not so casual anymore. yes, i know that there is a rich tapestry of marijuana smokers who don’t fit that fashion demographic and i don’t use those metrics to judge their potential to want to smoke pot, but i reiterate that nine times out of ten, some dread locked white guy likes to light it up once in a while.
that was totally a judgment of that guy’s character without ever saying one thing to him. i made a quick visual observation and assumed drug use almost automatically. again a point i concede. yet even though i think that of him, i don’t condemn him for it. i’m not running up to the guy and telling him that smoking pot is illegal for some reason and that he shouldn’t be doing this or that because i’m more morally righteous than he is. nope. not doing that even in the slightest. i’m just guessing based on a statistically weighted assumption that white dudes with dreadlocked hair wearing ratty plaid shirts and stupidly baggy pants more often than not smoke some marijuana to have a good time.
judgement based on observation and experience is a fundamental part of our lives. it’s what keeps us from eating spoiled fruit or from walking into traffic whilst danger is present. judgment is something we are taught. somewhere down the line however, we were told that it was a bad thing to do.
give me a moment to digress if you will... do you remember when you’d see those bumper stickers that said tolerance and it’d have a shit ton of religions iconography to comprise the word’s font face? do you remember in the 90’s when race was kind becoming an issue we’d have discussed during TGIF shows like family matters and full house? tolerance was a word used to describe how we should conduct ourselves with people who don’t look like us.
WHO THE FUCK EVER WANTS TO BE TOLERATED? what a stupid fucking word. people want acceptance and respect. we want our dignity to remain intact and our sense of self worth acknowledge in the only possible way - as equals. yet some stupid person with some shame or guilt over their own privilege decided that tolerance was a good word to use to describe interracial interactions. what a fucking moron.
i feel that painting the word judgement in the same light as condemnation is the same as usurping acceptance for tolerance. we’re taking a word that echos experience and intelligence and reason and turning it into something that is horrible and ugly. this notion feels like an assault on intelligence as a whole.
i learned this distinction of judgement and condemnation when it was discovered that a teenaged relative of mine was pregnant. as a former social worker i immediately started thinking of ways to get that girl educated on the coming milestones she’d have to address and also whatever options she’d have to contend with. i’m not saying i’m a saint but that’s just what i was thinking. the reactions from the rest of the family members were all over the scale. opinions came flying out of the wood work and lines were drawn. people condemned that little girl instantly. listening to their theories and what - if any - help they’d provide the little girl was just saddening. deplorable in some cases. people were looking for blame, some focal point to place their own angers and fears all the while seething from their teeth vitriol at the girl.
as another aside, why the hell didn’t anyone get angry at the dude? wtf ppl?
anyway, statistically speaking girls her age with her educational background and with her knowledge of the reproductive system place her into that demographic. she made a poor decision and so did he. they both were stupid kids. that’s it. plain and simple. they made one really stupid decision followed by several other mind bogglingly stupid decisions but is that out of the ordinary for someone in her position? in my opinion no. they were a text book case of teenage pregnancy right down to the empty promises from the boy to take care of things when he was done high school.
yet, if that is true - which it most certainly is, why do the family members condemn her for that decision? why did they spew so much hate toward her when it boiled down to the lack of education and contraceptives? we transfer our own fears and anger to that poor girl’s situation as if we were the ones who made the mistake. we get angry at her for our own misgivings. we condemn others for things we pray we can’t or wont do but fear that one day we will. when it’s that close to home, we feel that we failed her because we didn’t pass our experience along quickly enough, or effectively enough or even at all in this instance.
judging someone is really only a gauge to which we figure some commonality or not. and that’s perfectly ok. we just need to remember that although a nine times out of ten a duck is a duck is a duck, there’s always that off chance that last duck is a plasma tv. we never know for sure about anything but we can make educated guesses. when we start to influence those guesses with past shame, guilt or fear we rear our ugliness and show how terrible we can be.
i still make that mistake all the time. i can identify that i’ve done so eventually. frankly i don’t think anyone can ever really separate the two notions completely. but if we can be more aware of those distinctions maybe we can condemn others less frequently. or at the very least learn to shut up once in a while. and on that note, i’m off to bed.
-b
