Don't Ask for Permission: An Open Letter to Judgment

Since ancient times, people have created a mythos out of big, thinky concepts like jealousy, lust, greed, and even love. In modern times, we still live our lives around these ideas - and even though we're writing on computers, driving around in cars and planes, and (most of us) know the world is round and that a greater Universe exists outside our own little spheres of being - we still hold certain "truths" about a small world of internal judgment to be truthier than the big, wide reality.

The "truths" we tell ourselves sometimes involve what I think of as an imaginary personal judiciary. I like to think of them as a group of old-ish people in black robes with clip boards and microphones we pick (in our mind, anyway) and allow to be our own personal jury and judge on everything from our hair cuts to our ability to perform our jobs. We invite them in to inspect how well we make our beds, how we pluck our eyebrows, and how neatly we fold our towels.

What we don't want them to find is what we stuff under the bed, the thoughts going on behind the brows, or what we hid behind the towels in the closet.

Why do we do this? Well, there are a host of psychological, philosophical, and epistemological reasons - from trauma and guilt, to suffering or enlightenment, to the very existence of humanity - we tell each other, and ourselves, that we're not enough on a second by second basis. Yet, does it really matter why?

I think? The most important part of mythos is that we are trying to create some sort of concrete justification, or judgment, of things that we do, think, or are... rather than just BEING. The worst part? We assign the judgy part to some imaginary group of folks who are a mismatch of people in our lives, both real and imaginary, that we believe have some sort of authority to make us feel, think, and do things with ourselves and our lives: The Supreme Courts of Personal Judgment.

So, I am going to task you all with something, and I am going to do it as well. I want for us to write a letter to our own personal judiciaries, and I want you to share it with me here - or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/jonnikhatsantschi), so we can openly dismiss our courts and allow ourselves to become the independent and free acting people that we can be!

(I'll post my own letter, and the follow up, on Facebook.)

<3, Jonni Khat