Now that you have gone ahead and given this article a chance beyond the title … I thank you!
I have spent a good part of this morning engaging in intellectual intercourse with great friends on face book about 2 different links that one of them posted. The discussion was refreshing and I was in my element giving as good as I got. Yes, I know, if my boss reads this then I will have to explain why I was having intercourse in the office but for now I have three words about that ….bridge, cross, later.
Several things that came out in these discussions and really in every day life when I think about it is that we are a society that loves to judge. We judge everything. People. Writers. Schools. Countries. You name it, we judge it! And I am no better. I am right there at the top of that file …. I am shallow, I am narrow (forget about my waist) and therefore I judged based on my shallowness and narrowness. Or is it from my shallowcity and narrowcity? Yes, I see you judging not just me but my English teachers, the schools I went to and even my MS word version which is not correcting me.
So what is the option?
Would you rather not be in situations where you are not judged at all? Then does that not mean that you have judged those who do not judge as being non-judgemental? Before I completely loose myselfin this, let me give you background on what triggered this train of thought.
Yes, the discussion this morning pushed me over the cliff into writing this article but that is not where the question of being judgemental or not was born. Infact, the initial idea was not about being judgemental or not, it was about life and having an opinion. Anyone who knows me will tell you I have an opinion about everything and I do not understand how anyone cannot! How can you feel nothing about the length of the skirt that the judge will wear when she makes her ruling on the Ocampo Six? What has the sex of the judges got to do with the length of the said skirt? Oops, I digress…
You see I recently met a guy who was my classmate way back in primary school in the 80s. STOP trying to work out my age and stay with me! He walked into a restaurant and the only available seat was next to me. I was in deep communion with myself … pondering if I should have an ice cream sundae or should I have an ice cream sundae? Well, he said hi and when I looked up and realized it was someone I knew. Two things happened immediately. First was that I noticed he looked rather depressed and secondly, right there and then I also realized I needed to insulate myself up so that his low-spirit does not catch up with me … I ordered an ice cream sundae….do not judge me, it was for my sanity!
We started with the usual small talk, the psychosocial impact of ice cream sundae on the economy and soon enough conversation gravitated towards real life. I asked what was wrong as he seemed downcast. Well, that opened the flood gates! He told me that his business was going downhill and the only person who could save him was his partner and there was no chance of her being interested in saving him as he had just come from seeing a lawyer because the said business partner wanted to pull out of the business and yes, their marriage. His business partner was his wife and she had more shareholding than him.
By this time, my ice cream should have lost its appeal but am glad it did not… that appeal was the one reminder I had that there are still good things in this life!
As we talked I asked what had happened to the business and he said “Nothing.”
I asked what happened to the marriage and he said “Nothing.”
I asked what happened at the lawyers and again, he said, “Nothing.”
I had to get a new angle.
I asked what his wife did in terms of the business and he said, “Everything.”
What about the marriage and the family? He said, “Everything.”
What does she want now? He said, “Everything.”
Again, I needed to change tact or hit him with an empty ice cream sundae bowl. Empty because there is no need to waste good ice cream!
So I asked what he was going to do. He said, “Nothing.”
“But you will loose everything?” I asked.
“I feel nothing.” He responded.
By the way, did I mention that this guy had nothing as I devoured my ice cream sundae? Nothing looked good to him, pun fully intended.
Well, at the end of that conversation, I went away feeling sorry for this guy. You see for him the world was seen in only two lenses, he had nothing, felt nothing, had done nothing, could do nothing and yes, he said it, he was worth nothing. On the other hand, others had everything, could do everything and I am assuming he felt they were worth everything!
Yes, I can imagine the pain of loss, loss of family, loss of business and all other accompanying losses. However, in my humble opinion, loss of self is worse than all this. To me, loss of self includes the inability to feel anything, see anything, want anything, hate anything …. Life becomes nothing!
The flip side could be feel everything, want everything, see everything, hate everything does life then become everything?
Well, given the 2 choices, I would rather be an everythingist than a nothingist.
Yes, there are days when everything goes wrong and everything overwhelms me and everything I touch turns to old but I would still prefer that to nothing.
So even in our discourse with my friends this morning, there were comments that made me feel everything all at once, irritation, amusement and even anger and am sure my friends felt the same way about some of the comments I made. In fact, it is obvious that if they felt nothing about everything I commented, then that conversation would not have gone on and on.
For a nothingist, life means nothing.
Yes, in this life you can be either an everythingist or nothingist. You can be a somethingist. An anythingist. Or even a okeyist. But please do not be a nothingist!!
So yes, I am an everythingist and I will do everything to protect everything that defines me as I uncover everything am supposed to be!
Blessings y’all!
