99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #20

Transforming the nature and outcome of judgement:

Conceivably one of our first introduced dualities would have been that of judgement. Our ability to judge and assess can be seen as one of our earliest primal natures.  Indeed one of those first critical skills that launched us from a quadrupedal existence to our bipedal leap to exploration, required judgment. That judgment however gleaned, (and all the sciences would have an altering opinion on that) was accelerated because within us, biologically as well as psychologically, we were compelled to growth. The rate of that growth, for our intents and purposes was as a direct result of nurture, societally speaking  that is. We progressed mastering these skills, judging and assessing our surroundings in a primitive state that was normal for our growth. We were then introduced slowly to the society around us. And as we gained insight into our external environment , external as in outside our circle of family, we saw that norms for some were not the same as norms for ourselves or others. And on occasion when we attempted to assert that our norms were superior to those that were around us, we were for the first time asked not to judge from our indwelling mechanisms (either family concentric or personal), but to seek justification for our assumption from an external evaluation.

Now we have certainly witnessed the antithesis of this paradigm throughout society in acts of racism, assumed ethnic superiority, totalitarian ideology, and of the psychological aspects in individuals who have systemic failures in integrating into society.  These (the former) although a grievous blithe on our society, should not concern us at this time, our quest is introspection. What this paradigm did assert on us is the formation of the basic modulus of groups within our nature states, some of which being less favorable groupings within those nature states. The dualism is created out of the shift in our reasoning from one of reasoned introspection to reasoning through external investigation. It is then required of us to adopt new skill sets, which in turn requires us to adopt mechanisms by which to verify their accuracy and authenticity. These skill sets also required something that up until this time had been solely an internal intrinsic part of our makeup, "Trust".  Where at one time trust had been a sacred sheltered birthright, now we were being asked to extend it beyond its sacred realm into the vast domain of society at large. Such a leap without a supportive safety-net can and does create in a lot of individuals the anxiety states that over time will escalate and cause an impediment to an individuals growth. The reason for digressing this far back in the individuals journey into life is not to systematically go back and reconstruct their makeup, that is beyond the scope of this course. If an individual wishes to undertake this journey of introspection though, it can only bring about further awareness. And that awareness properly worked through and resolved can only lead to a better understanding of themselves. The reason we chose to introduce this retrospective was to remind the individual that most of the emotional states they experience now, were conditioned and normalized in their respective natures based on these judgments from early in their lives.

Why do we need to affirm this? So often in our lives we view ourselves as out of the mold unique individuals. We are indeed one-of-a-kind, and we are indeed unique, but we must be reminded on occasion that the individual personality that we are conscious of, relies on a matrix of natures to freely express itself in society and that those traits (natures) were learned or conditioned by experiential interaction within our environment. When we acknowledge this we reaffirm our authority, and as stated throughout the course, when we are acting in an authoritative position (neutral state), we are far more likely from that position, to act on circumstances and not have circumstances acting upon us.

Judgment is one of our most essential skill-sets, but judgment filtered through the lens of conditioned emotional natures is not only an impediment to our ability to assess a situation, it prevents us from seeing the situation in its entirety. In society we are often chided for making judgment calls, the word itself is often seen in a negative light. The truth is we are constantly in a state of judgment when acting in a societal context,  It is not the act that is at issue here but the clarity and the position from which the individual engages in the action that determines the value or appropriateness of it.