if we imagine the “mind behind nature” as a kind of neutral host, a background intelligence that holds both creation and destruction, generosity and indifference, then the harshness we turn inward isn’t coming from that host at all. It’s coming from us. From the strange, self reflective creatures who evolved inside that balanced field.
And that’s where it gets interesting.
🌒 Why we judge ourselves so harshly
A few patterns tend to show up across cultures and eras:
1. Self‑judgment is a survival adaptation
Creatures that constantly scan for their own mistakes survive longer.
- “Did I mess up?”
- “Did I offend someone?”
- “Did I misread the situation?”
This vigilance keeps you alive in a tribe. But in a modern, hyper reflective mind, it becomes overactive, like a smoke alarm that goes off when you toast bread.
2. Consciousness evolved faster than compassion
We developed the ability to analyze ourselves before we developed the ability to hold ourselves. So we became:
- hyper aware
- self critical
- imaginative enough to picture perfection
- but not yet wise enough as a species to treat ourselves gently
It’s like giving a child a microscope with no instructions.
3. We inherited moral frameworks from culture, not nature
Nature doesn’t judge. It balances. Culture judges. It ranks, compares, moralizes, and punishes.
So we internalize:
- “I should be better”
- “I should be more productive”
- “I should be more pure, more disciplined, more something”
Even though the background host: doesn’t demand any of that.
4. We confuse awareness with guilt
Humans can watch themselves watching themselves. That recursive loop easily becomes:
- “I see my flaws”
- “I must fix them”
- “If I can’t fix them, I’m failing”
But awareness doesn’t require punishment. Awareness is just awareness.
5. We mistake balance for moral failure
If the host of nature holds both good and bad, then so do we. But instead of seeing that as natural, we see it as a personal defect.
We think:
- “My anger means I’m bad”
- “My desire means I’m flawed”
- “My mistakes mean I’m unworthy”
When in reality, those things are simply the human expression of the same balance in the cosmos.
🌗 The paradox
If the background intelligence is balanced: not purely good. not purely bad. Then harsh self judgment is actually the least aligned thing we do.
Nature doesn’t shame the hurricane or the seed or the wolf. It doesn’t shame the human either. We invented shame.
And here’s the twist: We judge ourselves harshly because we assume ourselves more moral than the universe itself. The next time you find yourself judging yourself harshly, remember to be humble, thus forgiving.
We ultimately also cannot judge the Mind behind Nature. Free => Good or Bad.
We accept it’s actions regardless of what happens, as we cannot see what it sees. What might seem bad to us personally, is great in the full picture, always just beyond our horizon due to the infinite growth between us and the whole, of which is ever forming the edges of our possibilities.