In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

by Gabor Maté

When I am sharply judgmental of any other person, it’s because I sense or see reflected in them some aspect of myself that I don’t want to acknowledge. I’m speaking here not of my critique of another person’s behavior in objective terms but of the self-righteous tone of personal judgment that colors my opinion. If, for example, I resent some person close to me as “controlling,” it may be owing to my own inability to assert myself. Or I may react against another person because he or she has a trait that I myself have—and dislike—but don’t wish to acknowledge: for example, a tendency to want to control others. As I mentioned in a previous chapter, some mornings I vituperate about right-wing political columnists. My opinion remains more or less constant: their views are based on a highly selective reading of the facts and are rooted in a denial of reality. What does vary from day to day is the emotional charge that infuses my opinion. Some days I dismiss them with intense hostility; at other times I see their perspective as one possible way of looking at things, as an interpretation of their experience of life.