On discernment

I have often said that I respect people with discernment. I really admire people who have enough knowhow and good taste to have a good sense of the qualities of things. It's not only a matter of evaluating something for high quality, good performance, good execution, or some other sort of value. It's also being able to size something up and see it clearly in its entirety-- not being fooled by tricks, not being mislead, not misreading signals, but being capable of an accurate view of the complete sense.

I try very hard to be discerning. It helps you talk more intelligently about all manner of subjects from science to politics to love to art, because you can grasp the true sum total of a thing and have the right foundations for discussion. It helps you spend money better, because you can see whether something is worth the investment or not. I also think it can help you figure out how best to behave in a given situation, because you have the ability to size it up correctly. I also simply aspire to be a person of good taste, for the good impressions and the positive quality of life impact I believe it makes.

Sometimes I think it comes off to people as snobbishness. Like, it means you're always on the lookout for what's not good enough and always ready to dismiss things on the grounds that they are not up to your unreasonably high standards. But that's not what I mean by it, I see discernment and snobbery as two different things. Discernment is when you have the taste and knowledge to evaluate something for what it really is. Snobbery is when you use those determinations to condemn things as unworthy.

I confess that I sometimes do descend into snobbish behavior, particularly when I'm not feeling good about something else. It is a cheap and easy way to make me feel better about myself if I can run down something else. I should work to stop doing it at all costs, though. What I want to be is truly discerning, which is having a clear view but never losing humility just because you have it.