Where is the Love, V

 There was something more I wanted to say along the lines of my previous posts, but I struggled to figure out where to start or how to say it.

So I have decided to go about it sideways.

Or backwards.

We shall stalk this idea, slowly following it's trail through the trees and grasses, getting closer and closer to it until we can pounce on it and make it ours.

Or, in other words, I'm going to start with something that seems completely unrelated. Two quotes from two very different traditions, though there are definitely some similarities on certain topics.

Judge not lest ye be judged

- Matthew 7:1 

 

If you keep your mind from judging
and aren't led by the senses,
your heart will find peace.

 - Tao Te Ching, Ch 52

I do try not to judge others, and I have noticed how often some form of judgement still creeps in.

It's there in the connotations and sub-text, there in our body language. We can say "tall" or "short", and often there's a hidden judgment. "Tall" is good. "Short", if associated with a man, is generally bad. If a woman, it might be good. 

Good and bad are poor words here, I'm really trying to capture nuanced subtext. Short men have a negative subtext, but calling a girl woman a "short stack" might be calling them cute and being flirty. 

Tall and short are, to me at least, easy to pull back on the judgement for. After all, your height is genetic and it mostly just means some people have an easier time reaching higher places than others.

Anything genetic is easy to look at that way, actually. It's not like anyone had a choice in their genetics, so what is even the point in casting judgment on it? 

There are other terms, though. Loaded terms where judgment seeps in. Like 'slut', which carries one of the heaviest loads of hidden - and not so hidden - judgment.

Given that Jesus hang out with prostitutes and refused to cast stones at an adulterous woman, I'm pretty sure Jesus would never slut-shame. And yet our society is full of people judging others - women especially - for who they're having sex with.

To me, that's also a fairly easy layer of judgment to let go of. I don't particularly care who is (consensually) sleeping with who. Unless, of course, it's someone I'm in a committed relationship where we've agreed not to. Even then, the issue is less about the sex and more about the lying, poor self-control, poor emotional maturity, and poor judgment. (As in, if you've agreed to be in a committed relationship and you want to change that - you talk to your partner first. And accept that you might lose that relationship entirely if they're not willing to accept that change. You don't just pursue your own selfish desires, hope not to get caught, and then think you can somehow keep your other relationship the way it was, and I am constantly amazed at how often people keep making that foolish mistake. Makes for lots of songs about heartbreak I guess.)

Note - you just saw whole bunch of judgment. I'm side-eying one of the most common bad decision people make, ever. One I'm not even fully exempt from.

I'd also like to point out that in this case, I am not saying that those people are bad. Or evil. Or terrible. Just - poor judgement, poor self-control, and poor emotional maturity. 

All things that people can get better at. If they choose to.

I know text is a terrible way of conveying sub-text and body language, but I want you to think of it like saying someone is a terrible cook. Like - you would never trust that person in the kitchen, you may choose not to eat any dishes they make, but you don't think they're a waste of space that shouldn't exist.

And if they took a cooking class and put some effort in, you eventually might be willing to try some of their cooking again.

In a similar fashion, if someone made poor decisions in the past but has put in the work to learn better, I'd try not to keep holding that past against them.

This is the layer of judgment that I'm much less comfortable letting go, because there are real world consequences to the behavior I am judging.

Not just in personal lives, either. 

I started thinking about this more because of my experience in the Army. I worked with some very competent and talented people - but there were also some that were... not.

Some of them were very nice, and I didn't wish them ill at all. But would I want to have them in a leadership position if I was sent into a combat zone? Where my life, and the lives of the people around me, might depend on them?

...

...

Thank God that never got truly put to the test.

That sort of scenario reminds of a story a warrant officer I knew once told me. He was a Vietnam vet I worked with during our deployment to Iraq, and he talked about how his team was ambushed once. I don't remember the exact situation, but they were driving vehicles of some sort when they were hit.

The officer in charge froze up, and wasn't making the right call (if you are unfamiliar with the situation - freezing up in an ambush site is a terrible decision. You're pretty much in their kill zone, where they will keep shooting at you and killing you and you need to move. Quick. Which way will depend on if it's a near ambush or a far ambush and whatever your team has already communicated to do, but the point is you move.) 

This warrant officer said that he basically shoved the guy aside, took the wheel, and got his team moving. He said he was demoted, which isn't a surprise. He also got a private "Atta boy" for making the right call, which also isn't too surprising. At least, not surprising if you have competent leadership. Also, given he was a warrant officer when I met him, he clearly had not been kicked out of the military or denied a later promotion.

The reason I relayed all that is this - I judge the poor leadership of the person who froze. And I judge it hard.

Again, not in the sense that I think they're a terrible person who deserves to die. I don't even know the guy, or if it was his first ambush ever... freezing is a pretty normal reaction to situations like that. It's part of why the military trains so endlessly. When the shit hits the fan you're likely to start doing what you trained to do without thinking, which is significantly better than just locking up and getting shot because you're an easy target.

At the same time, if you're in a leadership position in a war zone, you absolutely need to be ready to make the right calls in combat. 

If you can't, you're going to get your people killed.

What I have learned, then, is that when it gets to leadership and decision-making I am in fact very, very judgy. 

I have opinions. And I have whole blog here to share them.

There are more layers to this, too. But this seems like a good stopping point, lest this post get ridiculously long.