The only handicap to being on top of the food chain is that it invariably inflates your sense of importance and ego. Our planetary dominance encourages us to think that our big brains can handle most anything, when, in reality, they are quite limited. And, unfortunately, I forget this all the time.
Take the case of stereotypes, or really, most biases. Biases and stereotypes are not only evolutionary leftovers, but even more insidious than that, they are evolutionary leftovers designed to ease caloric expenditure. Taking the time to avoid filing someone away as a type doesn’t feel good; but being filed away yourself also doesn’t feel good.
At this point, the lackadaisical, non-judgmental dollop of my brain is preening sedately, conscious of how much effort it exerts to stand out and treat each person as whomever they wish to be, without any judgment at all as to what they might be like.
Of course, that is lazy as well, only in a different fashion. Truly exerting your mind in judgment doesn’t mean withholding it entirely. Rather, exertion entails a careful, calm, considered judgment of what people say and do and what that might say about them. The thing is one can’t simply cease that exertion, ever. Judgment is flawed in its finality; few things are eternal in this world, and so my opinions shouldn’t be. People are surprising. They change as they age, or simply become ever more deeply entrenched in their own character, revealing interesting depths and facets never even suspected…mainly because I was probably absorbed in my own affairs.
This is the most difficult one of all. Since you are the only person who has complete control over what you say and do and think, it is easy to remain self-focused, and indeed, is rather necessary. The devil is in the details, or rather, how you perceive the objects and persons interacting with you. Just because there are limitless variables in the world doesn’t mean you can’t put yourself in their place. People may be surprising, but we are all people, and thus are fairly predictable. We want to avoid pain, we’ll flock together for protection like a herd of antelope, and so on.
After all, the entire fashion industry is based on how predictably people want to look like each other.
