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Carrion Luggage  Native to the Americas, the turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) travels widely in search of sustenance. While usually foraging alone, it relies on other individuals of its species for companionship and mutual protection. Sometimes misunderstood, sometimes feared, sometimes shunned, it nevertheless performs an important role in the ecosystem. This scavenger bird is a marvel of efficiency. Rather than expend energy flapping its wings, it instead locates uplifting columns of air, and spirals within them in order to glide to greater heights. This behavior has been mistaken for opportunism, interpreted as if it is circling doomed terrestrial animals destined to be its next meal. In truth, the vulture takes advantage of these thermals to gain the altitude needed glide longer distances, flying not out of necessity, but for the joy of it. It also avoids the exertion necessary to capture live prey, preferring instead to feast upon that which is already dead. In this behavior, it resembles many humans. It is not what most of us would consider to be a pretty bird. While its habits are often off-putting, or even disgusting, to members of more fastidious species, the turkey vulture helps to keep the environment from being clogged with detritus. Hence its Latin binomial, which translates to English as "golden purifier." I rarely know where the winds will take me next, or what I might find there. The journey is the destination. |
| Last time, it was USA Today; now, it's Psychology Today. Never will be tomorrow, will it? The other appropriate thing is that this comes up after I was pretty damn judgmental yesterday. No, I'm not sorry; when it comes to people actively making things worse for those who are already disadvantaged, that's when we should be judgmental, in my view. Before I get into the actual subject, a usage note: Both "judgment" and "judgement" are acceptable spellings.  The one with two Es is more common in British English, while the other is more of a US thing, kind of like how we dropped the superfluous U in "colour." The article, being written by a US author and presumably published for a US audience, uses "judgment," but I can't promise to be consistent in my commentary. Like I said, neither is wrong, any more than "gray" vs. "grey." (Gray is a color. Grey is a colour.)Judgments are knee-jerk, negative opinions of others, which are based on limited information. We can make positive judgments, too; but that's not the sense of "judgmental." On the one hand, it helps you feel superior. And, on the other, it contributes to chronically feeling unsafe because you believe people are awful. Except that they're not. A few are, and, like with yesterday's example, they tend to ruin it for everyone else. Unfortunately, perfectionism and cynicism tend to go hand in hand. Yeah, they're going to have to explain that one to me, because I don't see the connection. The perfectionist know-it-all believes they're the rational one. They don't perceive their defenses as defenses; to them, their perceptions are reality. Seems to me that everyone believes they're the rational one. No one actually is. So, self-oriented perfectionists, those who hold themselves up to extremely high standards, are usually also other-oriented perfectionists, treating others the same way. Anyone falling short of those standards is then criticized as being stupid, lazy, inconsiderate, and/or incompetent. Ah, now I think I understand. I consider myself stupid, lazy, inconsiderate, and/or incompetent; I don't expect others to be superior to me. (Or inferior, just to be clear.) This way of thinking forms the foundation of isolation and subsequent chronic loneliness. Not all who isolate are lonely. As usual, I feel like the article is written with the extroverted majority in mind. And empathy allows us to see ourselves in others, eliciting memories of similar choices in similar moments. However, that sense of weakness can scare us; perfectionists demand perfection for a sense of security, again from themselves and others. I begin to see the real problem: thinking empathy is a weakness. It is not. To challenge our judgmental mindset, we have to acknowledge our fear of being perceived as weak, which stems, in part, from hierarchal thinking. Well. That ties in nicely with my non-hierarchal (look, it may be "hierarchical," but I find that unwieldy) viewpoint. But that doesn't mean it's right. My own defenses include a) humor and b) skepticism about the soft sciences like psychology. When we're always competing, we need constant reminders of why we're better. In addition to supposedly protecting us from the world, judgments help us see the parts of ourselves that we don't like in others instead. They let us know that we're progressing well. And they act as mood regulators, picking us back up when we're down. Yet, we pay a significant price for them. The person reading this is challenged to find another way to feel proud and good about themselves. Or, and hear me out here, maybe grow beyond needing to compete or find reasons to "feel proud and good about themselves?" I feel like there's no point competing when your competition includes up to 8 billion other people and counting. Carl Jung noted, "Thinking is difficult; that's why most people judge." Moreover, thinking can be scary. Yet, judgments, when they become one's main coping mechanism, make our worlds even scarier. Well, at least he quoted Jung and not Fraud. Yes, that's a judgment. Not only have I never claimed to be consistent, I've noted repeatedly that I'm full of contradictions. "I am large; I contain multitudes." Again, though, I feel like there's a line between judging people for cause and taking shortcuts due to perfectionism or cynicism or whatever psychojargon you prefer. But we're all flawed, and maybe a little less condemnation for things like wearing socks with sandals, which ultimately doesn't harm anyone, would be appropriate. Then again, we all need exercise, and what's an easier exercise than jumping to conclusions? Just to be clear once again, I'm not trying to contradict the article. I'm also not saying it's right. Just something to think about. And at least he didn't sidetrack into purely speculative evolutionary psychology, which I think most other authors would have found a way to shoehorn in there. |
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So, I think I think therefore I delude myself in thinking I exist? Too much work for too little reward. 
Perhaps one day.