Judging Ourselves And Others In A Distracted World
What makes someone a good person? The sense of what is “good” and “bad” is often subjective, but most would agree that no one is so pure and moral that they always manage to act in theirs and others best interests. Understanding this should make it apparent that a particular set of facts are required to help measure the condemnation of those who fail to meet our standards, yet we routinely overlook a proper analysis before levelling our scorn and signalling our virtue; it’s worth reminding ourselves that we don’t know the things we don’t know about someone when we feel compelled to pass judgement.
This is not to suggest that we shouldn’t hand out punishment. After all, some amount of shame and guilt can be a healthy motivator in elevating transgressors to become better citizens. Let’s note, though, that the world of social media, fake news, and carefully curated algorithms have created echo chambers that do more to divide than unite, and with it a comfort in publicly ridiculing people for whom we would once demand more evidence before so harshly denouncing.
In these moments we forget that we too, make mistakes — or perhaps neglect to label them as such because our unique set of experiences have been packaged and narrated by our internal monologue in ways that help us justify the “why?” that’s asked of our actions. So, often we are neither good nor bad by our own account, we are just who we are.
What we fail to miss in light of this is that it’s so much easier to pat ourselves on the back and commend our glorious selves as virtuous when things are going great, and contrastingly, much easier to do wrong and paint ourselves the victim in times of hardship. Indeed sometimes we are the victim and we know, despairingly, that others don’t have the luxury of extrapolating out from the core of what we believe is the issue. What we can’t seem to help but do is make allowances for decisions that are questionable in order to get out of a negative state or situation, and we’re quick to label the same action in others as objectively bad.
The lesson posits that we should take the opportunity to be mindful of our thoughts, particularly in ways that allow us to short-circuit the tendency many of us have to click from one attractive headline, image, or thumbnail to the next. The lack of a healthy degree of mindfulness can mean the consequences of a moment of criticism, judgement, frustration or any number of negative states won’t be seized upon as an opportunity to realign our focus and energies, but rather can produce a spiral of self-doubt that wrap us up in worry. It happens so incrementally as to be imperceptible. We learn to avoid thoughts that lead to actions that promote creativity and a state of flow, instead inviting neuroses and stress to become the “normal” that we suppose we are.
We forget that we are the ocean that’s home to waters calm and rough, and identify more readily as the waves lapping gently at the shore or smashing violently into the rocks. Our ability to weather the storm will vary from person to person, and one might choose to accept that s/he needs to be lost in an asylum of their own making in order to reach the greatness that is their destiny. But could it be a mistake to feel that our fullest potential is predicated on identifying as someone who is hurt? Does it come out of the ether and float away? Do we watch it morph, seeing it naturally taking shape as a stronger emotion? Or can we only recollect the sequence in the aftermath of a rage that stole our consciousness?
By being more mindful of our thoughts we take away their agency to control us, and be left with a calming clarity. The joy of being in the present moment can facilitate a mind and body in harmony, thus giving strength to the individual and a starting point from which to direct attention with more purpose, create positive action, and refine our mind in ways that shape the meanings of our experiences so as to feel empowered and compassionate.
It’s difficult to overstate the importance of meaning in our lives, so no attempt is being made to undermine the necessity to have even the slightest chance of hope for a brighter future. Some of us undoubtedly become a lot more twisted than others in the undergrowth of the jungle that is our mental landscape, so as long as we’re all trying to find some sunlight, we should respect that a bit of space and access to basic needs is not just an individual plight, it’s a shared endeavour that contributes to the broader ecosystem that supports us.
The ever persistent nature/nurture battle means we’re buffeted into different positions along the emotional spectrum, lending a great deal of credence to the suggestion that the ‘I’ we speak of is largely an illusion — it gives the sense of one as an unchanging force, when in reality we could be more like the person standing next to us in 5 minutes time than the person we believe we are now. We are more like verbs than nouns, not ‘selves’ but rather ‘selfing’ from one moment to the next.
With that said, good luck to anyone who’s able to practice more self-awareness and may those moments serve to keep us honest about our reactions when we confront tough times, and be wary about taking too much pride in achievements when things are going well. We’re all flawed beings doing our best to avoid pain and increase pleasure in civilisations that are not designed with respect to the natural environments in which we evolved.
We’ve stepped so far into our comfort zone that we’ve made ourselves sedentary and lost the ability to feel the thrill of hunting, gathering, creating, and socialising unless it’s technologically assisted. We were built for doing jobs, but jobs predicated on the value and indeed the necessity to share time and resources, not ones that serve corporate monoliths that lock us into cubicles and contracts until we’re too old, weathered, and spiritually broken to enjoy a retirement that may never come.
It may be too late to completely step out of the jungle that technology and geo-political forces find us enclosed, but we should at least be aiming for a future that appropriately respects and reflects our biological and spiritual needs. We could be stuck with the kind of technologies that are so inconspicuous with respect to their harmful effects that we’re stuck in a malaise that makes as too lazy to will ourselves out of ignorance, that keeps alive the illusion of free choice while condemning us to drift further from the environments that support us and deeper into depression and despair.
We may be unable to replenish the Earth back to the full splendour of what was once its stunning biodiversity, we may have erected barriers to a human complexity and beauty now out of reach. With that being said, let’s now exercise whatever control we have left over the systems that build the walls that define our lives. If we’re placing ourselves inside a kind of zoo, let’s not be “bad” by creating conditions that see us crawl and beg and suffer in squalor, but rather do “good” and make one that is adequately regulated and sustainable and fosters human health in a way that we can still share, learn, love and laugh.
