earlier today i was thinking about comparing people. i was thinking about someone i know, and i caught myself thinking, well, at least i don't do ________, like she does. it kind of caught me off guard, and i thought, who cares? why does that make me better and her worse? but i realized that this was the way i'd been looking at not just her, but pretty much everyone else in my life: better or worse than me--sometimes in a general way, and sometimes based on certain categories or criteria, but basically boiling down to being put somewhere on a scale of what i deem best, worst, and all in between.
for some reason, as i thought about writing about this, i decided to find a picture on google that might add to or help express this idea of comparing and how messed up i'm realizing it is. but when i googled "comparing people," i didn't really get a lot of great pictures, so i thought i'd try "judging people."
those are just a couple that came up, but overall they were the same: negative, uncomfortable, mean even.
judging, comparing--i think judging probably sounds worse, but really, they're pretty much the same thing, at least in our social interactions. in the dictionary, they don't really have that similar of definitions--comparing sounds more positive--so maybe it's really judging that i mean more when i think of this negative behavior.
i don't know, because what i see myself doing is looking at what i like and dislike about myself, and then trying to measure that up against other peoples' behaviors and choices and whatnot. i don't know. i haven't really processed it all, but when i thought about this earlier, i thought, this is probably one of the roots of all the mess of society and human nature. categorizing, judging, comparing--whatever you want to call it--this is where we draw lines and pick sides and hurt each other in incredibly stupid and yet deep ways.
i imagine i will have more to come on this as i continue to chew on it...
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