And believe me
If you think Im gonna catch you when you fall
You dont know me,
You dont know me at all
- don henley

There is nothing more tiresome than having people who hardly know you telling you about yourself. Of course, their ability to be accurate is something akin to a drunk shooting darts. Sometimes they get lucky, but most of the time they’re just shooting wildly. Just like the drunk they’ll cling to that one lucky shot as proof that they’re sober.

Sometimes people who truly care about you feel driven to tell you their assessment of your life. Behind it of course are only the best of intentions. But that does not make them any more accurate. Psychologists spend weeks and months learning about an individual before they start attempting a diagnosis. (Well, good ones anyway). The lesson of course is that when dealing with someone you see occasionally, your opinions of that person are at the very least “suspect”.

Others try to form opinions based on snapshots. Momentary exposures. We see that in the news all the time. Who’s guilty, who’s racist, who’s whatever. . everyone has a judgment. Of course in reality the circle of Hyenas gathered round the waterhole have no clue what they’re talking about. The only thing they are really good at is making lots of noise. Public opinion is easily manipulated and often laughable in it’s naive simplicity. You only need to understand political and corporate use of “talking points” to see how well understood public manipulation is. It’s funny how many of us know that in some sense, but don’t seem to realize that WE are part of that very same public! (yep, that includes me as well of course)

Conversely-wise (I love that word), there is the old cleche. . “if they did it once. . .”. Ok, sometimes this is true, but it’s also a monstrous over simplification. It’s also said you need only touch a fire once to know it’s hot. Well, the other side of “they did it once” is that “experience is our best teacher”. From the observers point of view a superficial glance is often not enough to make those comparisons. By casual observation the air looked exactly the same in 1710 as it does now, but it takes some study to see how different it actually is.

Other’s pass judgments based on religious or political morality. Their opinions of course have been formed by the dogma of others. Their only task is to place people in the correct box according to their particular brand of dogma. This type of judgment takes very little actual thinking. But it does allow them to feel good about their opinions. After all, 100 million other people feel just like they do! Being part of a group gives them validity. Of course it’s this exact type of behavior that has created many of the ugliest episodes in human history. Just because you have a group behind you, does not make you right.

Now of course all this “opinion” would actually be of little importance if it weren’t for the human need validate themselves by sharing their judgments of others. Something that in the end just boils down to “gossip”. Gossip by it’s nature can only serve to hurt and damage others.

Now I know full well many of you will ask, “what’s got him on this tirade??”. Well, I was just thinking that there is so much complexity in the world that it’s very hard to just point blank say someone is a total cretin. But one thing is sure, . . .The one saying it is the most likely to deserve the label.