Critics and criticisms

 Critics and criticisms

😂

The two are mutually exclusive, though not often. 

A cunning critic outsources it, baiting a fool to voice his criticism 😜

My defect_by_default 😓….I got ‘lost’ into the criticism when I was a kid. Reason: an unwritten rule was, elders around are seldom wrong! ( Of course, as a teenager, I got_to_discover that …. wisdom & stupidity, runs concurrently with age, because all elders are not trained to ‘invoke their intellect CONSCIOUSLY 🙏”)

Then came the complexities when I had no ‘elder’ around to boldly_criticise me sincerely+honestly 😓. I had to look for the meaning ‘between the lines’ 😭.

Only when the criticism wasn't valid and yet a weapon used to infuriate me, I turned to look at ‘handling the_critic’, otherwise, I handle only the criticism, check it's validity and deal with it as per its merits.

This style of handling critics and criticisms distinctly, deposited a few benefits in the account of my character, quite surpringly and unexpectedly 😥.  My well wishers became more free with me! Trust in me started swelling a bit beyond its default elasticity 😜. I had to tone it down, at times, with a request: “please don't soften your criticism unreasonably🙏. I might overlook it's importance if I get lost into the sweetness of your tone, when you criticise. A stern voice guarantees drawing_my_attention 😥😥😥”

A joke ( about drawing the attention! Copyright: my spiritual teacher;  source:his spiritual program, 1992)

A seller demanded exorbitant price for his donkey from the buyer, explaining: ‘ this donkey obeys, just by speaking to it, no spanking needed’

Enthusiastically, the buyer tried it next morning “dear donkey, shall we go to the market? A big load of goods, you have to carry back for us👍”

The donkey ignored.

Buyer now tried several types of words, tones etc, verbally. Still no response.

Disappointed thoroughly, buyer went to the seller “you duped me! Donkey doesn't even listen🙏😭”

Seller : let me check! After all, there is something called “after_sales_service👍”

Seller gave a big knock on the head of the donkey and barked “walk 😡”. The donkey obeyed 😜

Turning to the buyer, the seller explained: see, you need to draw its attention first, and then talk to make it listen to obey 👍

Joke over.

Tragedy: my spiritual teacher never( during the five years of my studentship under him with a proximity) criticised or pointed to any error in me 🙏. Ironically, others numbering a few hundreds didn't notice that he omitted me from auditing! I was left to make guessed like: am I a case beyond_repair? or am I going to be auto_corrected? Etc.

I solved this lack of criticism, by evolving into a software of self_criticism 🙏. The only snag was, I had to ‘design’ another sub_routine program of healthy, impartial, sensible and a constructive_critic in me. Updation of healthy non_sadistic self_critic software involved equipoise of emotions, deepening of perception, sharpening of alertness, wakefulness in awareness, and judicious_discretion in Discrimination 😥.

Debugging of updations prove to be highly laborious than the basic design 😭

(By the way, a sample bit of my attempt to connive a sharp criticism to ‘look like a healthy one' 😜. During a month long residential program in spirituality, we were served with plain watery rice gruel for several days successively, twice a day. Several minds started repelling at the slow death of their taste buds. It so happened, that two of us( me and an other student, out of some 800), got noticed that the teacher never_refused to any of our request. I too noticed this, though a bit late! One participant tried to “use” me saying “hey, why don't you ask for teachers permission to have a pudding ( payasam, in desi language) at least once? He never refuses you👍” . I simply looked at the greedy in the eyes of this person and suggested calmly “but why did you volunteer to undergo this torture of rice_gruel/kanji? You could have stayed home and ordered for payasam( rice pudding) daily_thrice, being super rich yourself???” . That person CONSCIOUSLY collected all the energy from all over the body, concentrated it into the face, and displayed an unforgettable ANGER towards me🤣. My connived criticism caused an implosion in that person, unable to manifest/let_it_out in words 🙏 )

Software bijness in spirituality is a thankless job 🙏. All it can end up is, into detachment/freedom etc from the bondages I had preserved with the software itself😓

Non_critic_ally yours,

psn(6 Feb 2026)

Post script: observing ‘the way’ others use this weapon of criticism, afforded me to understand the sample_minds around, a bit effortlessly 😜