It begins with comparison. Comparison seems like a simple enough thing. A tiger is different from a rabbit. A blueberry is tasty; a pokeberry is poison.
In fact, scientists call our brain a comparison device. Neurologically, it is a pattern recognition machine. We match sensory inputs to patterns wired by genetics or experiences into our neural structure. We identify perfect matches (“Oh, there’s my friend Jack!”), similarities (“Gosh, that sure looks like Jack!”), and differences (“If that guy had a smaller nose, he might look like Jack.”)
The never-ending work of the brain is to process sensory data, build internal models of that data, and compare the two.
This seems like it should be a feature, not a bug! Look at how amazing we are. In a crowd of hundreds I can recognize my beloved from fifty feet behind her just by some nuance of the way she walks.
Comparison itself has some serious detrimental effects on human experience (see below), but it is also the foundation of a true poison: judgement.
But first, consider shame. Michael Lewis, in Shame: The Exposed Self, defines shame as “the comparison of the self’s actions…
