Emotion/Judgment Bypass

The whole American Idol thing is a lesson on judgment, emotions, and feelings. Simon is fond of saying that it is a singing competition but it is not. It is an idol competition. My handy-dandy dictionary says that an idol is "one that is adored" and if we throw in the adjective American we can see it as "one that is adored by America." So it is a competition to see who can be adored by the most amount of Americans.

The show has shown us that singing is only one component of adoration. Those seeking the adoration of the American public (and all that comes with that) compete with one another and are judged as to their adorability (which my handy dandy dictionary tells me is not a real word).

This is where judgment comes in. There are the three judges who supposedly represent the industry that makes money off of idols. But the real judges are the viewers who vote on the contestants they judge to be most worthy of being adored.

So how do we judge? When we watch someone singing and performing various emotions are triggered within us. Every emotion comes with a judgment attached. Every emotion! It is a conditioned automatic sequence; emotion-judgment, emotion-judgment. Every single time an emotion is triggered within us there is a subsequent judgment that is also triggered. And it is different for each of us depending on how we've been conditioned.

Simon has made it very clear that he does not like fat people. Regardless of how they sing he always puts them down for being overweight. Many Americans share this with Simon. When they see an overweight person a non-sympathetic emotion is triggered that comes with it's standard judgment. These judgments include: the fat person has no will power or self-esteem, they don't conform to our ideas of beauty, they are not sexy, they are piggish and slovenly, they are unhealthy, etc. In essence they are not worthy of being adored. While their singing may trigger other sympathetic emotions as well, the non-sympathetic ones can cancel them out and overall there may not be enough sympathetic judgments to take that contestant to the top.

A contestant's personality can trigger as many emotion/judgments, or more, than their singing. People's personalities trigger emotions within us and therefore judgments. This is true in everyday life. When we meet someone for the first time their personality immediately triggers emotions within us and we immediately judge them accordingly. We all react to overly gregarious people in our own way. We all react to shy people in our own way. We all react to humility in our own way. We all react to an awkward person in our own way. Some of us feel embarrassed, some of us feel agitated or offended or annoyed. It depends on the judgment that comes attached to the emotions they trigger in us. We may judge gregarious people as threatening or egotistical. We may judge humility as a strength or as a lack of self-esteem. Within five minutes of meeting someone and seeing their personality we have thoroughly judged them according to the emotions they have triggered within us.

So whether someone is worthy of being adored depends utterly on what emotions they trigger within us. If most all of the emotions triggered are ones that produce postive judgments then that someone is worthy of being loved and adored.

Then there's the singing. Music has the ability to not only trigger emotions within us--and the subsequent judgments--but it also can trigger feeling within us. (Some humans can do this, too.) Feelings are different than emotions because there are no judgments attached! Feelings just are. They fill our beings with a powerful electrical energy that renders us incapable of judgment. We are simply filled to the brim with love and joy. This kind of singing sends chills throughout our bodies and brings tears of joy to our eyes.

When music does this to us we cannot help but love and adore the vehicle through which the music comes. This is when we go beyond judgment and are able to love and adore the singer no matter how fat or ugly they are or what their personalities are like or how well they can dance. Music is one of the most powerful ways to spread love and joy. It has the power to bypass our emotion/judgment conditioning.

This is what Recktold was looking for when he held singing competitions in my novel, The Valley of the Singing Girl and this is what I was looking for when I watched American Idol. As Recktold found out, it's pretty darn hard to find. What sustained me was looking for the possibility and potential for it. What I learned is that looking for the possibility and potential for it in everyone can help us go beyond the emotion/judgment conditioning.