There are a lot of smug, self-righteous folks out there -- I hope not but maybe some right here reading this -- who like to look down their noses at what they call "sheeple".
Tellingly, if we are really honest with ourselves, at one time or another and to a greater or lesser degree, we've all been sheeple. We've gone with the flow. Gone along to get along. Yes, I'm embarrassed to say, I have too.
What am I supposed to take from that?
The hardest thing for me, as a very smart person, with a smart mouth, and a smart aleck attitude, to learn and fully internalize has been this:
Don't judge.
Of course, there are situations and people all of the time which require a "judgment call". Should I trust this person? Is that guy over there yelling at the top of his lungs about UFOs dangerous? Is this politician focused on getting my vote telling the truth or blowing smoke?
What I mean by 'don't judge' is simple. Don't make final declarations which cut you off from any further understanding or appreciation, whether it's about a person or a circumstance.
Sheeple, for example.
The idiom implies that such people are incapable of thinking for themselves, that they purely are followers. The herd sleeps, they sleep. The herd chews on grass, they chew on grass. The herd runs into the chute to their slaughter, they run into the chute to their slaughter.
There's some truth to that. But the fact is, we all do this. Anybody out there wearing their pants backwards or answering the phone by reciting Shakespearean couplets? Any of you celebrate your last birthday by playing the drum solo from In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida naked at the bottom of an empty swimming pool?
We all do a lot of things in concert with others. We go to concerts and sing along with the chorus to our favorite songs. By the millions we watch the same TV shows, laugh at the same jokes, cry at the same tragedies, sit like hypnotized lumps taking in the daily news, then say the same things everyone else is saying about the same scandals.
And the undeniable truth is, sometimes it feels great being part of some "community" of people doing the same thing. Is anyone going to tell me that tens of thousands of people packing into a stadium or millions of people glued to the boob tube, watching grown men -- very big grown men -- battle to cart what looks like a leather melon to the end of a grassy rectangle, that's asserting individuality and true independent thinking? Rah rah rah. More beer! Yay!
Don't judge.
Let me take this to another level.
(Stay with me. Be a nice sheeple, please, at least for the duration of this probably worthless article.)
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