Judgementalism

See, this is how it is.  At the heart of it, my next book, "Maggie's Children", is about people being judgemental.  It's about people forming opinions of others based upon the minimal amount of knowledge.  I know that people will read it and form their own opinions.  But what I'm trying to do is make Saul Castle, the lead character, such a nice, engaging person, that I'm hoping you, the reader, won't be shocked when "it all comes out".

Here's the thing.  The majority of us, we are judgemental.  We form our opinions on limited knowledge.  We don't want to give people a chance.  We'd rather base our opinions on what other people have told us, on what we've read.  I've been a victim of judgementalism.  I am a convicted drink driver.  Worse than that, I was convicted for a second time.  Now, anybody who knows me well will testify that I took my punishment with aplomb.  I don't seek to attribute blame elsewhere, and the report of my absurd behaviour on that particular evening makes shocking reading, but even the police officers who arrested me accepted it because I was drunk.  Alcohol does bad things to some people.  But people have consistently judged me for what happened on that fateful night, late December 2011.  I've kind of given up on arguing my case - it's a losing battle.  And in the grand scheme of things, people who don't know me, do I care what they think of me?  Not at all.  I was a twat.  My friends, my family even, will say that I was a twat (or something akin to that, if they don't swear).  But to be honest, I'm kind of pissed off with people judging me.  I had people saying, "You could've killed somebody."  Yeah, but I didn't.  And when a person is arrested for being drunk and disorderly and a little bit lairy in the town centre, nobody says to them, "Yeah, but you could've got into a fight and killed somebody."  It's all relative.  Call me a twat, call me a cunt even, but don't escalate my crime beyond what it was.

And then, back to my next book.  There is a lot of judgementalism in there.  And I'm not just talking about drinking and driving.  It goes far deeper than that.  When it comes out, read it, read about Saul Castle, read about what he goes through, and then think about that statement, which I'll have to paraphrase because, ho ho, I've had a couple of beers, but it's something about not judging a man unless you've walked a few miles in his shoes.

I'll leave you with that thought.