On Criticism

It was difficult not to let feelings overpower one’s intelligence when being judged.

If one must count on their conscience according to the purpose of diction, being brutally honest is a suitable choice. However, an opinionated response is another.

You can only take things personally if they are a part of the truth you had been avoiding. By being hurt, you must first have a wound yourself. If not, the words lose their meanings, and you shouldn’t (theoretically) feel pain.

Being offended by one’s words meant the ideology which is clear to you was not clear for others and it seems unacceptable.

It appears that a readable score of 49% must be understood by someone who’s equally intelligent as you, or more so. Since this person is known to be an intellectual, instead of criticism you expect appreciation. Humans are always optimistic in the worst scenario.

As a satirist and a judge, your words are rather harsh. Although you would think someone–especially this person–would understand your ironic interpretation and twisted humor, he doesn’t.

Your excitement pours down to surprise, shock, anger, denial, sorrow, reflection, acceptance as the whole process of grieving completed had you been able to clear your mind and distinguish the similarities in these words.
It was the strategy you implied to publically accused someone who pushed you off his boat. The same situational irony, sarcasm, purposeful oblivious reproach had you think it would not turn against you when you were right, and there wasn’t any better sensation than being right by somehow identified yourself as a victim in this chaotic life.

Ironically you were tested in a sense it should be understanding and accountable praises that were supposed to appear before your eyes. The flood of emotions raged over you when your “potential” confusion was challenged, being judged, being, in a sense, insulted as you tried not to drown in your acidic wrath. More importantly, this person uses smooth provocation against you as if your paper was a scene, and he was the director of the play.

Naturally, as a thinker, you translated every word according to your dictionary, and see how brilliant it was that as a criticism it plays to every string of your nerves and every beat of your mortal heart.

These dramatized “comments” clashed with your oversaturated diction when a realistic castigation had outsmarted the oldest trick in the book.

Of course, as you dissect the definition from both the tone and the diction you couldn’t help but feel, feel what cannot be placed into words since it’s greater, feel what you do not have the mentality(emotional intelligence) to express.

That struck you hard.

As consciousness is a double-edged sword, by knowing what they wanted to say you feel what you were unwilling.

The bitter comprehension of your accuser’s word, his purpose, his intention, his motivation in contrast to your oversalted wound. The wound itself is a moral flaw that was hidden within, until this day when someone dares to split it open.

In perspective, as a friend this sort of criticism is abrupt. As an acquaintance, it is much worse. As a stranger, it is the kind that befriends rejection and causes Hitler to start the Holocaust and a World War.

For a moment, as being judged by someone on the same status, same thinking system, same overburden pride but withhold a higher standard(and higher still) and fired at you that makes you wanted to fire back––

That was the strategy of criticism.

It requires attention, equally harsh diction, a friend or a foe, or anything less so.

You realize you were hurt because(as the truth) you care. Your values are not valued unless it was proven to be valuable. And in some parts of you do you compare yourself to this genius that once understands you, then perfected the art of hurting you because you love pain.

Some part of you still thinks him a God(your nervousness when detecting the handwriting as his and the eagerness to swallow every word on your page was the evidence). Some part of you placed him as the highest standard plausible.

Then a part of you, a small fraction, through the glimpses of body language that believed your friend had never been dead.

A part of you would love to love him when you learn how to love everyone just the same.

Your natural sorrow slowly came forth when you know, instinctively, this person was not on the same side as you. Although he was a diplomat and you were a liberal, the two of you diverge away from each other in a closure.

As you were pleased, he learned to use euphemism the way you had and cast a better plot; he rounded his intention while you sharpen yours. As you were pleased, the one who when decided upon a matter, uses their knowledge to attack behind a shield is always more potent than one who shed away her suits and armors and only held on to a sword; one that she might not have the strength to lift.

Your weakness then wasn’t just your arrogance, but the assumption of this person, although with his outstanding intelligence, would support the somewhat scattered philosophy in your rusted mind.

You believe this person was wise enough to solve an enigma with no clues, although with a compelling mentality and enchanting confidence–he was not meant to be like you.

This is your greatest weakness: Your desire to make an ideology fit in an inadequate field by twisting the supposedly obvious truth when you know its actuality.

The truth is that once someone decided to criticize you, they are willing to make your greatness suffer until your injurious one shows.

Perhaps there are reasons behind your immediate anger, anger that swells your heart and makes breathing even more difficult than it already is. Out of the forceful inhale and delayed exhale you realize not only the air smocked within you is toxic with CO2 but also your thoughts that circulated your mind.

The truth had always been, strictly speaking, unpleasant, your hope of finding pleasure in a hopeless cage shouldn’t be at all surprising.

Since you have feelings, you couldn’t blame anyone that decided to insult you, succeed, injected all the delirium within, and make you hurt in a “deep”, polar “accusation” created by no one but you.

As a playwright you wanted your actors to participate the way you intended. Then as the director comes in, smirking eyes, unkind words, spat on your face and distorted your play into the conventional, populated scene that you had seen too much and would like to see no more. It is reasonable to correct someone when you see something unfit. It is wrongful to judge when what you were implying was your mistruth and not the truth.

As Friedrich Nietzsche once said,

It is unreasonable to dictate a piece of paper and use your so-called intelligence, your opinions, your “alarming” correction to slice your compassion from your mind. Perhaps, sometimes, most of the time, you do not value conscience like the writer does, or does not think such abstruseness was worth your logic because once you had remarked its irrationality upon the common fault, it will remain nothing but a “general” satire.

As a writer, you are somewhat tactless, since pathos is not your strongest field, you polish your strength instead of perfecting the prudence of writing according to your audience’s preference. And I(decided to use the first-person pronoun instead since the “you” and the “you” before that is oblivious), who believe writing itself should not be restricted to readers and patient ears.

Writing is a form of art; art is freedom. When you criticize someone due to their inconsiderate words, you are standing against Freedom of speech in its symbolism. True, as a student we must follow the prompt, we must obey the curriculum, we must be rounded and balance our words since everyone is already quite sensitive, we must rewire our mind to adopt the standard of society and guidelines.

Perspectives are supported by facts( unlike yours) and ideas should be questioned and not insulted. For that disparagement define oppression.

Such “strategy” was what causes segregation by birth.

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