Post-Proficiency / Julie Banks

Ignasi Mena

To make a judgment you need time, otherwise time will judge you (and you won't like it)

I recall a family soirée, not so long ago, when one of my aunts asked my grandfather Jordi how
can we really know someone. The question was quite relevant because, having been a
psychologist for many years, Jordi had spent the best of the previous hour talking about
schizophrenia and role playing. (Yes, you're right, my family just loves talking about this kind of
uneasy, macabre issues). My aunt thought that everything you need to know about a person is
written on her face, as if wrinkles and moles were a map of our personalities (or of our past, or
our guts).

"On the contrary" my uncle Jordi answered. "To really know a person you need time, mostly.
But there's more to it. Picture a person as a fireman with all his equipment: his helmet, his
hose, his fireman's jacket, gloves, fire boots, and a truck as well. And now listen: his helmet
may be the way he deals with emotions; the hose may be the way he understands the concept
of a job in the twenty-first century; his fireman's jacket is his sense of fashion, and his style
may be flashy but shallow; and the fire boots? He may be willing to run to save an old lady in
danger but he will never dance a song because he doesn't have a sense of rhythm."

"What about the truck?" my aunt responded.

"Well, the truck may be the size of his dick". (Yeah, my family can be silly and obnoxious too.)

As far as I know, my aunt's and my grandfather's point of view can coexist inside one single
mind. Both of them reflect different parts of our own mental structure. My aunt's perspective
would be related to our most primal instincts: if I like what I see in a person, he or she may be
a good individual. If I don't like what I see, it must be because he or she has done something
deeply bad. Something inside of us believes that the inner and the outer sides are exactly the
same. In all honesty, no matter how old I get, I still act as a teenager in front of a beautiful face,
a nice-built body or the view of a human being in physical pain. The irrational, or pre-rational,
or even the animal side me will always be within me.

But we shouldn't get too excited. Because as cultural and rational beings we invented, at some
point, the concepts of beauty and health and good or bad behavior. Personalities just reflect
these social, historical and personal values. As responsible adults we can also read into
someone through his actual context and his heritage or his past. We're more than just genes.
We're more than just one personality aspect. We're living beings, and as such we have
incredibly flexible minds and ever-changing bodies. In fact, to be alive means to change, to
become someone different every single second. And you cannot know someone's history if you
forget to check his past, or if you don’t pay attention to where he is right now.

Being a teacher you must definitely be able to see beyond first impressions. Last weekend I
was teaching an English class in CIC with new students. Even if I tried to make them feel
comfortable and at ease since the very start, one of the girls seemed super shy and
uncomfortable. She barely smiled, she didn't project her voice and she barely did eye-contact
with any of her peers. She needed more time than the rest to fill in the gaps or answer my
questions, so I somehow thought that her English level would be the worst in the class. She
would surprise me every time, though, because each and every one of her answers was spot
on. In fact I would say that her English level might have been the best in that class. She ended
me when, having dismissed the class, she came to me super confidently to tell me that she had
enjoyed the class very much. I felt incredibly ashamed of myself and, at the same time, very
proud of her. I had misjudged her from the beginning.

Do you understand now why I said that the teenager in me is still the President in the country
of my heart? The good thing about this kind of situation is that puts you in your place. The
truth is that, most of the time, your judgments reflect who you are more than the person
you're talking or thinking about. You judge from your point of view. What's more, you are your
point of view. So if you think that a face is all there is to a person, then you're picturing
yourself as a face. This irrational, or poor mindset, can make you belief things like "Once a thief
always a thief". But there's always more to that. As my grandfather said, if you want to know
someone you must look at his equipment: his gloves, his helmet, his jacket. What does he
think about religion? And what are his views on gender inequality? Is he a nice person? Is he
selfish? And what about his truck? Is it as big, or as long, as his hose?