Monday, September 23, 2019

Judgmental

I don't know exactly when I started getting judgmental about people. It probably started way back in school. You know how it is - every class has this irritating bunch of people who seem to think that marks below 90% (grades, these days, I suppose but it was all about marks then) do not exist and take it as a personal insult if they score less than 100%. It is too much to expect the rest of us to go around with hangdog expressions, looking up in awe at these lofty people. So, naturally, we judged them to be the sort who 'mugged up and vomited' (Memorized without understanding, for the uninitiated) and not really intelligent at all. We, the truly intelligent, could not stoop to such degraded practices even if we were inclined to drop playing hooky and spend time with books.

After that promising start, it is but natural that I scaled new heights. In office, the chap who ascended the ladder was, of course, invariably the boss' pet. I mean, not as in 'pet' because he was good at his work and, thus, ascended the ladder but ascended the ladder because he was the 'pet'. Sometimes, yes, it became difficult to not accept that the chap WAS good at his work but, then, hey the chap had such awful haircut, or had such terrible table manners or...well, usually there WAS something about him which was so rank terrible that he did not deserve to be where he was. Such a pity that such undeserving people got ahead in life. Life is so unfair.

The biggest problem, though, was with those people who are held up as examples. I mean, uncomfortable chaps like, say, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. Those character elements and those achievements for which they are known and you are exhorted to try to live up to...very irritating. So, yeah, what would you do? Try to find if there is reason to believe that they did NOT do what they are said to have done, right? If you cannot find that, then go searching for SOME reason to pull them down, so that you can say they are not great idols to follow, right? After all, they are human, they must have SOME flaws. Precisely what I do. And if they are long dead, so much the better, since they are not going to be around to take you to court for slander or libel. Naturally, I did not rest till I found feet of clay in ANY idol. It is SO irksome to think that they can be, or become, better humans than me.

Do I judge myself, you ask? What nonsense. Why do you think I go around judging other people, if not to avoid judging myself? If I started down that slippery slope, then I would have to feel that I needed to improve myself or some such shit.

Such an uncomfortable thing to do!

4 comments:

  1. Brilliant!! Who wants to be in the trial box? Better be on the bench, right?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like some people I know. Interestingly, you're not one of them, despite the first-person narrative adopted here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. The first person is but a device as you know. Where it really applies is where I'd be blind to it. 😁

      Delete