I ain't going nowhere so you can get to know me

It's a daily battle to escape the one thing that has persisted through the years - Judgment. No, I don't mean the biblical kind. We all know we can't escape that (whether or not we believe). But it's pretty clear that even though one should "judge not, lest ye be judged", it's pretty pervasive.

We are judged differently on the basis of gender, of our socioeconomic background, of our religious and cultural beliefs. There are so many ways to keep score it's a little mind numbing. For example, if you are a guy - somehow we have been socially conditioned to keep score by such things as number of girls we've dated/slept with, what sports we are good at and our level of proficiency at said sports, annual income and potential future earnings, and even things like academic degrees and the quality of the institution attended. If you are a girl, you might keep score by things such as how close you are to the stereotype of the "ideal woman" (I think generally considered to be blonde, buxom, slender, and obeisant - with intelligence and other factors a matter of taste).

Then we move onto things like jobs and careers, where you might keep score by where your office is, what floor your office is on, what your salary is, who you know, how many industry awards you've won, etc. Once you have kids, it's a whole new playing field, ripe with more ways to keep score. I think in the end, most people convince themselves that they are pretty happy with what they've got, or that it could be worse, etc etc. But with all these ways to quantitatively measure yourself against the grain of society, there's gotta be a point where you say, "Hey, my life sucks. And I'm not OK with that." I think that this point is different for everyone.

Even the most pious among us can't deny having judged or being judged, even by their peers. I mean, there are all manners of sin to scale against! I'll bet everyone has looked at another person at one point in their lives and made some sort of moral judgment about that person or that person's choices.

Well, nothing here is new to anyone, I'm sure. I thought I knew where I was going with this when I started, but I'm not sure anymore. I guess this is what a lot of people would call "the game". "You gotta play the game" and stuff. Even if you don't want to play the game, sometimes you have to. I suppose I'm a little annoyed by the game because it's definitely skewed toward people with certain superficial traits (e.g. the color of your skin). So we all find ways to be included and exclude others. Now I'm mostly rambling, so I'll stop. One day, I'll learn to properly write a post - I promise.