Post Burning Man Thoughts Part One (1/3): On Judgment

“It is only shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.” — Oscar Wilde

Judgment has become a loaded word. It no longer refers exclusively to its actual definition, but to a social stigma. It implies judging harshly without cause, not simply the semiotics behind opinions.

At Burning Man, judgment is a bad word. There, we talk at length on hopes and fears, love and pain, what we look for in others, and who we strive to be ourselves. The theme is always judging the judgmental.

Judging a book by its cover is considered the greatest sin.

I disagree.

Judgment is breathing — natural and necessary.

I want nothing to do with passive judgers (not sure if that’s a real word), they waste too much time. Further, I feel neglected, and sometimes offended, when I’m not judged by my cover.

I put a great deal of consideration and effort into my cover. I assemble outfits with care and my hair is a huge part of my identity. It’s all language and expression required to communicate the person I am and the relationships I want. Our surface appearance has been arranged purposefully, why pretend otherwise and why ignore it?

My favorite books have effective covers that communicate the subject, tone and quality of the book. They are often beautiful themselves. The publisher works hard on them. They need to stand out on the shelf and say hey you, person who likes cheesy romance novels — read me! Or hey you, person who likes murder mysteries with ghosts — read me! Or hey you, person who wants to read the best Hillary Clinton biography, I’m better and more official than the others because the best people with the most resources were given to me to make me stand out from the mediocre Clinton bios.

Yeah, I believe that the best Hillary Clinton bio will have the most resources put into its marketing, and hire the best designers to create the cover, and result in it standing out on the shelf from inferior bios. It’s completely possible that the one with the boring cover is better, but odds are that the nicer cover will front the better book.

Likewise, I believe that I’m going to have better conversations with the girl whose style I admire than the girl whose style is uninteresting to me. That doesn’t mean the flashier or more expensive or more conventionally beautifully dressed girl, I mean the girl with the style I vibe with more.

I date a girl with short hair, who wears hoodies, backwards hats, and big glasses. I love it. It’s sexy to me. I judged from her appearance combined with whom introduced us that she was someone I’d get along with, I made extra effort to talk to her, and my judgment served me well.

When I meet girls wearing vintage rock tees, I judge them. I do not wait to have deep conversations with them to form my opinion that they are #basic. It’s possible that she’s a tech nerd who’s really awesome and smart and cool and independent and strong but just not into going out and is making an exception and trying to look the part but she doesn’t really do it often and didn’t realize that wearing a Ramones shirt is super lame but that’s just not her typical form of expression and I’d be missing out by not getting to know her better.

That’s possible, but it’s an exception.

For the very few times I miss out on that exception, I’m saving myself countless #basic girls who I don’t want to talk to because the Ramones shirt is an accurate representation of their #basic-ness. I don’t rule out a deep conversation, but then the exception will stand out in some way.

Semiotics. We enter a room, look and choose who to talk to based on signs and symbols.

At Burning Man, I saw this beautiful girl wearing a striped blue buttoned-down shirt and jeans. Amidst a sea of costumes, this girl dressed regular. She wasn’t playing the game and she wore it well, she piqued my interest. She’s a Parisian Dev living in Palo Alto working for one of the companies you can guess. If my Mom could script a girl, this is she. She became the best new relationship I made at Burning Man (we didn’t make out, just friends).

I want people to judge me on my appearance. It communicates something on purpose, and I put great effort into it. It tells this person to talk to me, and that person not to. It tells this person what we should talk about. My appearance is language, the same as talking.

“What do you do?” is OK to ask.

I’m confused why it’s acceptable to judge my charisma and conversation skills but not how I spend my time. I want to talk about what I do. I love what I do. My life pursuit is the most interesting thing about me. I would never want to be in a relationship with someone who doesn’t care about what I do. I want someone to want me because they think my music is cool, or my parties, or my clothing — judge all of it. Don’t network me, I hate that, but ask me questions about who I am and what I do.

And judge my answers.

Judgment builds identity.

To be continued with my thoughts on Costumes in part two, and Open-Mindedness in part three. By the way, funny note…#judgment is less popular than #judgement by a lot. #merika