I am not a spontaneous person when it comes to action but sometimes I make up for it in communication with rather disastrous results. I lay much stock by directness and honesty but it seems to me it can take the shape of unkindness if I am not careful. Recently I made a comment on social media which later I couldn’t really justify to myself. This is strange because logic is sort of the spirit that animates whatever I say so it is rarely, if ever, that I can’t explain the logic of what I said. The logic may be open to contestation but it would still be logical from my perspective. In this case, I didn’t think what I said was all that logical if I saw it from a broader perspective—which I tend to do. But what’s more, it also seemed like an unkind statement to me. To say something illogical out of kindness would also be logical to me in a sense but to say something illogical and unkind… now that stumped me. One explanation could be that I have too many things on my mind these days and that perhaps caused me to not think through what I was saying.

Later someone responded to me to mind my own house first because they thought my statement had the same inconsistencies that I was pointing out unkindly. That wasn’t strictly true and I said as much but something about the exchange lingered in my mind… I pride myself on my ability to think critically but this made me ponder: 1. How can I develop a mode of critiquing that shows a sensitivity to human fallibilities including my own, and 2. Given that any piece of anything can potentially be critiqued in one way or another for something or the other, how do I direct my critique to the productive or progressive rather than merely corrective or irrelevant?

Like the ancient Romans commanded the words “Memento Mori” (“remember that you must die”) to be whispered into their ears to keep them grounded, so too I will whisper these words, “mind your own house first” to myself when I deploy my critique. I admire humility in others and this might be a way to incorporate some myself.