“If ever one is disturbed, one of three things is happening. They are either hating, judging, or playing God.” Of course, I am immediately about to contradict that statement as I am about to make a harsh judgment, but generally speaking, how it works in the rooms of “Alcoholics Anonymous” is there are one or two people who have something to offer. The rest of us are practically insane, essentially hoping that one day, we get what those one or two people have. I’m not suggesting that I am one of the few who “have something,” but I do listen to the few that do. If there is anything I can do, it’s relay quality messages to all of you normal people. One of the few sane people I’ve met during my time in the rooms shared that opening statement with me, and, for my money, it is indisputable.
I feel as though I do a good enough job not hating. At least not in real life, anyway. On social media, however, I more than likely come across as one of the more hateful people you’ll ever see. To suggest that this hatred does not carry over into real life at times would be naïve. You know what? I’m willing to bet that I can find someone or something I hate if I open Twitter right now. Be right back. Okay, I’m back. Found something. An article from “The Atlantic” reads, “Let’s declare a pandemic amnesty. We need to forgive one another for what we did and said when we were in the dark about COVID.” What? You were the ones screaming at the rest of us, telling us what to do, thinking you knew better, and are now trying to backtrack because, la-de-da, you didn’t. Anyhow, the point is that I am capable of hate, regardless of thinking that I often don’t. If anything else, I don’t fight hatred with love; I fight hatred with hatred of my own.
How can I say I don’t judge? I’ve already done so in the first paragraph, right after the thesis of this entry. I’ve been maintaining the notion that there are necessary judgments to make, but are these “necessary judgments” actually judgments, or are they just common sense? For instance, if I am walking past a group of people shooting up heroin, that’s probably not a very productive group of people to be spending time with. If there is a rattlesnake pit along my pathway, I’m not going to stop and think to myself, “Well, you know, I shouldn’t judge these creatures. After all, they ‘help humans check tick-borne Lyme disease.’” No, I’m getting the fuck out of dodge. I suppose the question is, “are there built-in or intrinsic features of existence that do not require a judgment call but that we just know to run away from or avoid?” Ultimately, the type of judgment we mustn’t make is where we think we are better than someone else or we think somebody else is better than us.
Finally, “playing God.” Guilty. Does anyone else do the following, or am I just a lunatic? I find myself consistently daydreaming or rehearsing interactions with others with the deluded idea that I am doing nothing other than “preparing myself” for when they happen. Is that what I’m really doing, or am I trying to manipulate the interaction so that, in the end, it is most beneficial to me? Doesn’t everyone know that I am the best director for my show? If everyone would just do what I want them to do or say what I want them to say, everything would work out just fine. “But, noooooo.” All these people want to do is go off-script and ruin the scenes that I’ve created. This is just one example among many others, but the important thing I (or we) need to remember is that Somebody created this life, and it wasn’t me.
Do the opposite today. Instead of hate, love; instead of judge, accept; and, instead of playing God, let God.
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