…That I’ve been thinking about judgment?
… or is that judgement?
In our world of internet communication the ease by which so many can come on line and say whatever it is they choose is alarming. Not that this is necessarily a negative, I, for one, love the instant access and ability to communicate so quickly and freely with people around the world and in my country. But with this freedom comes responsibility… well… at least for some. For others, it would seem, the freedom and abandon of anonymity has become a license to tell people pretty much anything they wish.
Why is it then that so many have decided to be nasty with this freedom?
Within the last couple of years especially I have witnessed a growing trend of plain and simple humans commanding power and perhaps acting out with an unleashing of stress and anger at the world around them. It’s not always easy to read… sometimes it is downright depressing… but if one does the old “wearing the shoe from the other foot” exercise a lot of steam can be blown out of the largest percentage of what is being written and read.
Which brings me to the topic at hand today.
I have been a member of an online message board community for going on 8 years now. The attraction of the users is the entertainment industry, primarily television programming. I found it looking for a place to talk about a reality program called Survivor and ended up staying for so many other programs and a few rather decent relationships.
Although judgment is certainly not something I am tackling in any capacity for the first time… I do find that it is something incredibly prevalent in these message boards (added to the daily doses in everyday conversation and interaction.) I have discovered in the world of anonymous posting that people find it easy to “hate” and deconstruct character as if it were a casual greeting or any normal statement of “fact” in normal conversation.
For the most part I find myself asking people if they really “hate” someone on a reality show who is out there looking to obtain their 15 minutes of fame. I am then pounded with angry responses and fingers pointed at me regarding my judgment of their opinion. When this first occurred I found myself somewhat astounded and taken aback. How could they, after all, not know my intention in asking the question? How is it that they don’t know I am just trying to keep things a bit more peaceful and comfortable in atmosphere without the tension that anger and certain words will convey?
They don’t know. Not only do they not know but they are feeding others who need the outlet as well. If there is anything that I have learned in my growth and worldly education is that negatives are cyclical and feed from other negatives. On top of that comes the very freedom we have been provided in speech and the outlets in which we are able to write that speech. With said freedom comes an entitlement of opinion and the ability to tell people they are wrong and we are right. It is pretty amazing just how many people are right out there…
But this begs the question…. are they wrong? What is wrong and what is right? Are there levels and can lines be drawn? Who is the one who makes these decisions? Are some things right in some instances and wrong in others? Do people on the internet ever listen to one another and realize that there may be some truth in the points being made… whether in anger or in honest debate?
And what of judgment? Who am I to tell people that they are being judgmental without having been judgmental myself in doing so? It’s all very psychological when we decide to tell people how we feel about anything that they might be doing or saying. What we think and say about anything outside of ourselves is essentially judgment. So then… since the basic concepts behind “opinion” and “Judgment” are rather similar… how is it that one is something we hold close and important and the other becomes an undesirable behavior trait? If people can defend a comment by saying that it is an opinion (and thus provide the ongoing debate about how one’s opinion is not necessarily wrong because it is owned and subjective) where then does the line become drawn between that invisible shield and the harsher more realistic version known as judgment.
Wow. Heady stuff. There are no real answers. Anything I would or could provide here would only be an opinion… and, whether some would agree or not, ,a judgment of the situation. But it does allow me to do what I do best these days… it keeps me aware of the things I am saying and doing. It allows me to look at the words written on message boards and coming out of people’s mouths and remember the masterful agreement by my guru Don Miguel Ruiz.
Don’t take anything personally. It isn’t about you. It’s about them.
Let me tell you… this is not an easy world to live in for an analytical mind. 
Be Happy. Be Well. Be.