Thoughts on judgement and criticism. And a random Aristotle quote.

“To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.”
― Aristotle

 

And that is what people fail to do. Everybody says things and does things, and they all are things, and people judge them for it.

I once read that in the first twelve seconds of meeting someone, you make assumptions about them, and you almost always stick to those assumptions.

I come across as a judgemental person. I tell myself that I don’t judge, I merely criticize to improve. Or that I “notice” people’s imperfections, but don’t actually judge them for it.

The truth is: that is a lie.

I will assume somebody’s lacking in intellect if they wear too much make-up, or if they have an unbearable accent. And don’t get me started on people who text when they’re being spoken to!

But I never really know the people I judge. How could I?

And in the act of judging, we all forget the basic fact that everyone has a story.

Strangely enough, it was a lesson that my characters tried to teach me. A lot of minor characters kept invading my mind and telling me to give them a back story, to give them something more than they were.

There were two characters in The Three Stages trilogy who were minor characters until part way through TRANSCEND. For a lot of time I’d thought there was something more to those characters, but I couldn’t figure it out. Then, one day, the most random storyline idea popped into my mind, and it connected them.

But in real life, you can’t get new storyline ideas to prove people’s worth. You have to get to know them, ask them questions. You have to discover their stories, rather than creating them.

But maybe the most…thought provoking thing is when you’re proven wrong. When you think somebody’s a certain way cos of how they look or act, or how they speak or sound, then it turns out they’re not that way at all.

And when all you see is the imperfect, you never see the good in people.

The person with an accent you don’t like could have the world’s nicest smile. The initials tattooed on someone’s arm could be those of someone they love who died. The truth is: you never know a person until you actually know them. And then you still only know as much as they let you know.

And then silly little Eliza comes along and instantly assumes that she’s is a good judge of character because she can create characters. Then Eliza realizes that reading books doesn’t make her an expert on human beings, it just makes her think she is.

Eliza has suddenly started referring to herself in the third person.

But maybe people need to try to think of themselves in the third person. If you see something from afar, it looks different. If for one day every single person saw themselves how others saw them, wouldn’t the whole world be completely different?