‘Born And Raised By Hyporcrits’

I remember being an eager student in Primary School and being told that I could be and do whatever I wanted. Of course the endless ‘rules’ of the classroom and having to blindly obey a teacher without reasoning, left me feeling a bit lost. It was like, ‘yes, do what you want, but not in the school’s time’. I’m not gonna lie, I wasn’t the brightest person in my class, but I certainly wasn’t the most stupid. I always did a lot of reading in my own time, I liked to try and push myself, so the idea that school wanted us to ‘try, but not too hard’ was a bit much for me. And in the end, the mixed signals left me jaded, and that by the time I finished school, I didn’t care too much about the whole thing.

Whilst I like to think that in adulthood, things have changed, and people can be more open and honest with each other, I know this doesn’t happen. The big thing is I notice that those around me seem willing to compromise on things so important as ethics. Ethics and beliefs are what make us, us. And yet people are willing throw such things aside, especially if it means it would mean using a little effort. The big thing is buying products, I’m pretty sure that everyone would love to make sure that they people who make it possible to enjoy said products, were paid fairly. But this doesn’t happen, unless you buy specialist products. People tend to believe in the idea of people getting more money for producing things like clothing, but they won’t pay any more so will still shop in cheaper shops like Primark. It means they are being contradictory, saying one thing, but doing the opposite.

I mean going back to my youth, you were told to live by your convictions, but noone followed up on them. Even religion, I went and enjoyed church and Sunday school as a kid. I loved books, and a lot of the things we did, was reading or even better arts and crafts. I thought it was awesome. Now although my family will cite Church of Scotland as their religion, none of them could tell you anything they learned from the bible or the last time they went to church. I, now as an adult tend to abstain from religion, as I don’t like the idea of following something blindly. I have read up on other religions, and do like seeing the lessons they have to teach, but I don’t pray nor ask anyone for forgiveness. But then, the hypocrisy is that I will still celebrate Christmas. And I know a lot of people, who are very similar to me in that respect.

I guess it’s all a bit of a minefield. It’s hard to deal with ethics and morality, if you have been given mixed signals all your life.

What’s in an impression of someone?

I had a discussion online today, about people and how they react to someone they don’t know.

We are taught from a young age,  that first impressions count. But how tainted is your ‘first impression’ if someone imposes their judgement on you. For instance, Paris Hilton. I have had many chats with fellow Good Charlotte fans about Paris, and a lot of people think she is a stupid bimbo. But where do they get this idea from? I mean, they have never met nor even talked to the girl, but yet some will say they hate her.

Hate. Is that not a bit severe to describe someone you actually know nothing about. They get these impressions from tabloids and the 24 rolling ‘celebrity’ news. These are preconceived ideas about people, which are created to sell the idea of fame as if it were some product that could be picked up from the supermarket. So the hate people feel, is not for Paris, herself, because they no nothing of her true personality, and her behaviours, they hate the Paris which appeared in The Simple Life,  and still is in endless tabloids.

But, if hating someone blindly is wrong, so is loving someone surely. I mean love and hate are such extreme emotions, that you can’t feel them for someone we have never met. Is it maybe that we live in a society filled with extremes, that we can only describe things in extremes? Its like the whole obsessing over things ( which I am prone to) where a band, you maybe have never seen in real life becomes a main object of interest and your life works round your obsession. Love is a word, not that much different from hate, but you can openly love something, but hate is like a swear word. How is that fair?

So your childhood lessons of passing judgement is rendered useless by the input of other sources. How does this effect our judgement? It obviously does, because our enviroment is so busy, we can’t help but take in almost everything we see. And the way our brain works, is that it absorbs everything we read or hear. And what you absorb, effects how you make judgements about what you see.

So, I think that it’s the enviroment that you put yourself into, which decides how you judge others. As a child I used to be very judgemental, but as soon as people started judging me (e.g- was beaten up for ‘being a Goth’  for wearing a Green Day shirt), it effected how I thought about others. And I now, pretty much live by treating others how I want to be treated. And by that, I mean I make a conscious effort not to judge someone untill I have met them. It has led to me making more clear assessments on people, and in turn has made me happier for it.

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And nonsensical ranting over. This is something that has been getting on my nerves lately.