Who Am I?

Who am I to judge people? Who am I to decide what's right or wrong for someone other than myself? Never knowing the whole story and never knowing the motives I still catch myself constantly judging the acts or inclinations of others. Whether alone or going along with the mob it seems almost like a gut reaction. I see something happen and emotion takes over as if it has a will of its own. It's either good or bad. Right or wrong. Fair, unfair, just, unjust, exciting, pointless, it doesn't really matter what the judgment is so much as the fact that I do it. Why does it matter?


I don't know for sure. I know that I feel great indignation if I find that I have been judged. I know that I have met no person who I feel has a right to judge me. Yet I do it constantly. I think everyone does, but that doesn't make it right. We are quick to jump in with the masses, the mob mentality being what it is. Bands get booed off the stage. I line of cars drives 20 miles per hour in order to get a good look at the wreck. A person commits an offense and the masses unite to cast him, or her, down. We are a herd. This is what we do. It's an instictive reaction in order to protect a great many from the undermining of a few. Right or wrong, we see this every day. It does not, however, expain why I do it on my own.

Sometimes I think that maybe it's a superiority complex. Maybe I think that I'm better than other people. I get angry when someone cuts me off while driving, but I've done it too. I hate it when someone tries to force their beliefs on me but I also do this, often to the very same person who did it to me. I take offense easily. I try not to, but I do. I also have a quick temper which means that if I feel attacked, I retaliate in kind. I escalate. That doesn't seem right does it? It's what I do. It all seems very hypocritical. I know that these are things that many people feel about themselves. I realize that I am probably not alone in this. I not really worried about why other people do it though.

That last statement alone has an egotistical ring to it. Other peoples problems don't matter, only mine do. I often wonder why I frequently feel I'm sitting on both sides of the fence. Why can't I just pick one side or the other? Why can't I stop pretending to be right and actually be right, or better, or smarter? Could I stop doing all the things I hate and then be justified in judging people for doing these same things? I doubt it. That's life. Nor do I think that I could stop caring about what other people say or do and just live my life without caring about my obvious flaws. That seems highly unlikely. No, I think my destiny is to be both the jerk and the victim. Woe is me.

The best part is the conversations I have in my head about these things. Here's a hypothetical.

"That guy is a jerk!

Why?

He just cut me off!

So, don't you do that too?

Well, yeah but not recently.

So I suppose this means that he's a jerk more recently than you? Does being a jerk have an expiration date?

Well, no, but you're just not supposed to do that.

Right. True. But isn't there quite a long list of things you do that you're not supposed to. Shall we list them? Shall we stop that man and compare notes? It could be fun. It could be kind of a spitting match to see who's less of a nice person more often. Do you feel like you could win?

Maybe.

Ah. Not so indignant now are we? Not standing up on high any longer judging all the flawed little people. It's humbling to be grouped with the masses isn't it. Even more so to think that maybe, just maybe, you're a bit more flawed than normal."

The point of this little self inflicted exercise is that maybe we should all have a little voice in our head that lists for us all the bad or stupid or hurtful things we've done before we do any of these things again. Maybe then the world would be a better place. The problem with my little voice is that even though I really enjoy the british accent it has, it always seems to turn on about 30 seconds too late.

So who am I? I'm the guy who has imaginary conversations with the imaginary voice of a british woman in my head about things like no matter how angry I was, that thing that I did was still probably not a good idea. In fact it was probably a bad one. Probably a thing that I'll pay for later.

Probably...

Just as soon as I finish paying for all the things I did before it.