(Phlog post headers... I like them visually, but recently
I've had limited time, and having to put a header up there
in a particular format is more annoying that I figured it
would be. Goodbye header, until life is more calm.)
When you move to a new place, you necessarily meet a lot of
new people. Even if you're not really looking for them, they
find you. There's some kind of psychological pull that makes
established people want to reach out to new people, though
I'm not sure how to label it.
I've been meeting a lot of new folks. For whatever reason,
my brain wants to attempt to associate the new folks with
the folks that I already know, or once knew; the old folks.
I'm not talking about age at all, of course, just newness
and oldness of knowing and understanding.
Clearly, there is no strong and consistent correlation
between how a person looks, and how they think, feel, or
behave. I say that as if I've done some kind of researching
or at least web searching on the subject, but I have not. It
is my opinion that there couldn't possibly be more than a
loose correlation.
And yet, my mind seems to want to reflexively judge people
that I see, based on people that I've known previously.
Recently, two individuals come to mind. I met them here
where I am, and they reminded me of people I once knew
previously where I used to be. Immediately, I thought I knew
these people in some way.
This is prejudice. I didn't know these people at all, I only
saw them and figured that they might be similar to others
that looked like them. To be clear, since there is quite the
hubbub about racism, I'm not talking about skin color or
nationality, I'm talking primarily about facial features,
general behaviors, and the other things that make people
personally recognizable. I was prejudiced based on someone
looking like someone else. New folks and old folks.
Thankfully, I'm speaking in the past tense. This is both
because I'm relating a story that happened a few days ago,
and because the problem has been resolved.
As I said, there were two individuals specifically that I
had judged, who stand out, perhaps, because I had judged
them harshly. As it happened, I had the opportunity at a
social function to spend some time talking to these two new
folks, and I found out quite quickly that they weren't like
the old folks that they reminded me of.
I'm a religious sort of fellow, and I feel that it's
morally wrong to judge people without knowing them. I don't
subscribe to the notion that a man ought not to judge at
all, just that a man ought not to judge unfairly. And so,
when I got to feeling that I had unfairly judged these
people, I thought in my heart "I'm sorry that I judged you,"
and I had a amicable feeling toward these new folks that I
was just getting to know.
Interesting to me, I also had some amicable feelings toward
the people that I had known previously, the old folks that I
had compared these new folks to in my mind. I thought that
perhaps I had misjudged them, and that if I had taken more
time to sit and talk, I might have found out that they were
different than I thought.
It would be wonderful if these sorts of small lessons
created large changes in a man like me. I hope that they do.
More likely, small lessons will have to be learned and
re-learned for years before I really change. But hopefully
in writing this one down, I'll keep it in my the next time
the new folks remind me of the old folks.
