"Whatever you condemn, you have done yourself." - Georg Groddeck

Last seat back of the bus today on the way to Belmont, scratching out answers in vain last-minute practice, I looked up and wondered if I hadn't been wrong for two years. We were passing over particularly treacherous pavement; there would be periods of smooth riding, and suddenly a pothole or crack in the road would surface and eject us into the air. At every bump I was spit two feet up, causing the pencil tip to make an angry dash. Then I would come down hard on the thinly padded seat, neck whipped back and spine jammed down. It was impossible to stay with the numbers. After several minutes more struggling, I put them down. Up in the front of the bus there was much less whiplash; I could have managed to work there.

Across the aisle sat an old friend from middle school, and in the row in front of me two girls I "knew" but knew not at all. Even while I had been ostensibly working, it had been difficult to ignore their conversation.

They were really enjoying themselves. My friend was leaning back in his seat, arms crossed, laid-back, in control, body language radiating satisfaction. On one girl was that perpetual smile. What they were talking about, though, did not correlate with their sweetness.

"She's a bitch...here's a secret, but don't tell her I told you."
"Rate him on a scale of one to ten..."
"Ugly as hell. Oh god no.."

Here were my friends, intelligent and fun-loving, confident in their righteousness, condemning with a smile! Yet their joy was superficially something I desired a slice of. It was at once compelling and repulsive.

It can't happen, I thought. I must be better than this. What repelled me most was the utter lack of loyalty in this group. They were members of the debate team, a fast crowd, a tight clan. And they talked behind each other's backs so viciously? Did my friend do the same to me?

And yet I have doubtless done the same in my life. I am not so good. It is too easy to pass judgments quickly against others; it prevents us from taking the effort to consider them as a whole. I find that those who speak slowly, speak more deeply, and so it is with judgments as well.