Inexpressible, expressionless judgement…

Satan Handling Job/How we handle each other...

Social stigma and judgement remains interesting to me. And, not only because I have engaged in it, but because more often than not, I am often subject to it in ways that may or may not be fair. And, as we’ve all come to know: nothing in life is fair – ever. And, what’s often left out: what’s always fair is my response to it no matter how isolating or punitive the result. And, of course they deserved it.

In the first season of the Downton Abbey, the Dowager Countess remarks, “I have plenty of friends I don’t like.”  And in may ways, it is our friends who hold us to the strongest judgements. Even our closest friends will judge, canvass the jury and execute you if only as punishment for your inability to conform to the ideas, expectations and perceptions of the direction life. Indeed, I suppose this kind of bonded conformity is what makes friendships, but wouldn’t it rather be better if we all understood the emotional and psychological gaps within ourselves, reflected upon those within ourselves than in others and by that way build better relationships? And, the result: there’d be nothing to talk about; that colorful person would grayscale against the  examined color of our individual lives. Of course, I don’t know the answer, and in my fallibility I am more than certain attention to my own faults are more than enough to keep me from judging another’s.

But this is how life goes until one by one we all die, and in the moment before we’re dispatched, when all the experiences and relationships we gained, loved, lost and poorly sustained crystallizes into a moment of release and relief to pass away. My only hope is that I’ve not done anything to keep me within the cycle of incarnation, and that I may be able to pass forward into the empyrean realm as nothing more than a wavelength of the lightest and highest energy – and may God’s good will be with me for I am not so sure that’ll happen, after all I put my pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.

To return to the main idea, I sometimes don’t know how to deal with people. As an emotional hemophiliac maybe most people have no idea of how to interact with me. At one time I willed myself to love, forgive, forget and forge forward relationships with people polluted with the trash of their own lives, with people who cared not for my sensitivity insofar as they appointed themselves my flay and salt to toughen me. That makes me and still makes me sad. And, we’re not victims, and the dominant lesson is to leave people. Be social of course but never allow people, except a few (less than 10, perhaps fewer), beyond the breakwater to dock at your heart lest you learn too late the ship flew a false flag to carry marauders – and to perchance risk loneliness portends the best blessing.

In a world of billions of people, our capacity compete over dwindling resources only means we’ve to out compete each other for the privilege of care and emotion – it is a due of accomplishment. Coming from a materially marginalized background  (simply put: humble) does not mean you are not worthy of emotional connections and considerations; more often coming from a poor background only means your are worthy of charitable concern, a cordon and to be the object of perception upon which one’s actions raise or lowers the fickle confidence of others in you. This also entails being the object of platitudes, and incomprehension from promontories of presumptuous calm that rarely grasps the  maelstrom a marginalized life buffets. And, when that comprehension is present, the honor is to be aware, respect it and not tax it to the point that the next man down the road has no access to it. Even the poor can judge the expense and means of the heart to greedily consume more than needs, and bruise the generous. What’s up for critique are those to think they are generous, who can count the ways and efforts of their generosity within a balance sheet. After effecting an emotional, psychological and physical thrashing to provision a band-aid for the broken leg with the tibia projecting through torn skin –  the critical observer’s upon the height and oxygenating rampart of cruelty that keeps a dead black heart on life support.

It’s never a question of mental capacity.  No, it’s a question for the judged individual to surmount the weight of perception, disregard and petty challenges waged against them, against attempts to frustrate, and tests upon the mettle of those under consideration for worthiness.  And, about those judging: well they’ve been judged, maybe found wanting, and have taken to the pleasure gained from administering judgement.  I suppose these are one of the trespasses mentioned in Lord’s prayer.

The cliché: only God can judge, only S/He’s omniscient to judge (which not to say wise judges in earthly courts have no place) the totality of a human life.

The real deal: in these infinitesimal moments, snapshot witnesses to the lives of others – we judge with the conviction, finality and sanctimony of that old Adversary that unceasingly demerits humanity’s creation. And, our own judgements are those sheafs of evidence that makes full the Devil’s dossier presented on high. The discredit of humanity.  If at some point in all our lives we know (if we’ve read) the fullness of the Book of Job, a book older than Genesis, outlining the jobs of judgment we visit upon each other, each day and subject each other to the fullness of our perceptions: then we’d know for sure  the compassion cast into the dust, and the warmth of loneliness as the choice companion.