Judge Off!

Why Jesus knew what he was saying when he said "judge not" and why some of us should just shut up and take the advice.

Picture this.

An intimate setting in a classy restaurant with ambience that is the nearest thing to a five star resort. A gathering of old friends, all who got somewhere important in their respective careers and exchanging smiling faces. Midway through the main course, the topics run dry and you search for something banal to say like, how you holed yourself for nearly twelve hours in your bedroom two days earlier and finished the entire season of "Six Feet Under" on DVD in one sitting, helped by beer and wine. To which your friend announces: "Oh it sucks, the series I mean. It's so depressing." I stare at her with the shock of a she-wolf watching one of her cubs getting ripped into shreds by a lawnmower. Keeping my nerves shackled, I dug deeper to her reasons. And then I find out that the woman barely saw half an episode, remembered only the opening sequence and decided that the colours wasn't as lively as "Sex In The City". Wow. It's not as lively as Sesame Street either and last heard there wasn't a 30 foot bird walking around but hey, I LOVE that show. The point really isn't that someone attacked my choice in a good drama, a way way original script and an ensemble of brilliant actors but she attacked my choice without even checking if her opinion was informed and qualified! Like how dumb can that be?

Now for some of us, this sort of attack comes in various ways.

Have you ever had to defend something that you decided was part of your most personal components? Like your religion. Or diet. Or sexual orientation. Or hair colour. Somehow it always crosses the path of someone else. I am so tired of people telling me what I should believe in. Don't we feel like telling them all to shut the fuck up? So what if bloody Dan Brown can suggest that Catholics are all a dumb flock of sheep? Or some professor can prove Jesus was into men for reasons other than faith? Or that listening to pop music is allowing myself to be subliminally reprogrammed? My choices are my own and guess what? If all you have is the perspective of an ant on an elephant's anus I suggest that you shut the fuck up. Unless you have walked a mile, nay, ten miles in my shoes then will I even bother to take that opinion. If not, make a different opinion. In some cultures, one could have their tongue cut off or beheaded for saying the wrong things (if you haven't noticed, it's so like, now)

So I have officially had it. Unless you're totally prepared to take my verbal defense of my own choices (if I can be bothered to still hang around at your table), go right ahead. Make that snide comment. Go on, say in your oh-I-am-so-educated way and express that what-I-read-in-the-gossip-column statement. Make my day because honey, cordiality got up the bus to Penang and I will rebut your butt. Judge not and ye shall not be judged and ye shall also not suffer thy equivalent of kitchen salt on thy garden snail. Judge off!