Saturday 5th Dec
Making value judgements of others is a big waste of time, but we like wasting time. Most of us procrastinate the use of our time to avoid using it for more productive purposes (difficult tasks), which we try to put off. Instead we indulge in judgement as a sort of entertainment. I often catch myself passing a judgement on this or that to fill an empty space in my mind? I suppose that most others do that too.
If this is a popular ‘sport’ it may be spurred on by a sort of schadenfreude impulse, where other peoples’ behaviour makes ours look better. It’s where we might try to step into the affairs of other people, and try to clean them up. Maybe we try to throw a rug across other people’s dirty floors, so that we can step towards them without getting our feet soiled.
One of our harshest judgments is reserved for peoples’ routine un-thought-out habits, actions that aren’t self-directed but largely directed by others, or copied from other people’s behaviours. Take for example my reaction to the routine eating of meat or wearing of ‘animal’ clothing. Maybe I don’t believe it right to eat meat or wear leather but how justified would I be in judging you for still doing that? If I, as a vegan, am judging you wrong, I think it’s best to keep quiet about it. Because if I approach you and express my judgement of you, you’ll know immediately that I intend you to feel my disapproval. I’d be using it to get you to agree with me, to get you to throw out the meat and toss out your shoes. In my reckoning, if you do this I will release my judgment of you, start to form a better opinion of you, and we can all be friends again. This may sound absurd but it’s close to what many of us do to each other on many counts where we have different views.
If this is a popular ‘sport’ it may be spurred on by a sort of schadenfreude impulse, where other peoples’ behaviour makes ours look better. It’s where we might try to step into the affairs of other people, and try to clean them up. Maybe we try to throw a rug across other people’s dirty floors, so that we can step towards them without getting our feet soiled.
One of our harshest judgments is reserved for peoples’ routine un-thought-out habits, actions that aren’t self-directed but largely directed by others, or copied from other people’s behaviours. Take for example my reaction to the routine eating of meat or wearing of ‘animal’ clothing. Maybe I don’t believe it right to eat meat or wear leather but how justified would I be in judging you for still doing that? If I, as a vegan, am judging you wrong, I think it’s best to keep quiet about it. Because if I approach you and express my judgement of you, you’ll know immediately that I intend you to feel my disapproval. I’d be using it to get you to agree with me, to get you to throw out the meat and toss out your shoes. In my reckoning, if you do this I will release my judgment of you, start to form a better opinion of you, and we can all be friends again. This may sound absurd but it’s close to what many of us do to each other on many counts where we have different views.
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