Judge Not, Lest Ye Become One

So I'm sitting in court yesterday waiting for my 15 seconds of infamy... "Guilty, Your Honor"... (and the opportunity to pay $300 in court costs) because I had been driving with a suspended license. I had been driving with a suspended license (unknowingly) for nearly a year, because I had been driving without insurance (unknowingly) for over a year, because (I'm guessing) as I was moving from one state to another, back to the first state and then two more moves before finally settling in where I am now, I missed several notices from my insurance company.  I apparently also missed a notice from the state, telling me they'd suspended my license, but  all of this is not why I write.  (Aside:  the cop who ticketed me for driving with a suspended license was incredulous that I could have gone a year without paying my car insurance, and not noticed that fact.  Clearly, he doesn't know me very well.)

Before he started hearing cases, the judge took about 15 minutes to explain the rules of the court and the process that would occur depending on the outcome of the hearing.  After the first 4 people came before him and answered "No" to the question of whether they'd obtained a valid driver's license, he sighed and began a 5 minute lecture on the importance of taking care of the problem now, before it becomes a bigger one (with a 5 year prison sentence possibility), just for driving without a license.

While edifying, the thing that really struck me was how much he sounded exactly like me in the classroom, admonishing my students that they needed to do the class work and homework... not for my benefit, but their own.  The more he spoke -- with that exasperated tone that said clearly he knew his words were falling on deaf ears, but he felt the need to say them anyway -- the more he seemed to be in exactly the same role as I am in every day.  He's talking to a lot of people who don't want to be there.  He has information they need.  Information they are fighting to avoid learning, and that he's fighting to make them learn, despite the fact that he receives no benefit from their learning it, and they receive enormous benefit.  It's like force-feeding wounded birds to keep them alive.  It pisses them off, it does you no good while saving their lives, and they're not only not grateful, they're actively hostile.

As Buckaroo Bonzai said many years ago, no matter where you go, there you are.