My pride is my blindness
What is mine that isn’t also yours?
First and foremost, I am selling my house. I explain why in the video. Below the video is an essay with reflections that are very connected to the topics of the video but that feel more challenging to include in a YouTube video like this for some reason. Different formats for different places, I suppose. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.
I wrote this listening to this.
I am a proud little motherfucker.
In our 21st century world, pride is considered a thing to be celebrated. The polar opposite of shame as if those two were the only two options.
I am using the word in a different way. I’m using it more like Dante used it: as one of the seven deadly sins.
Of the many great gifts life has given me over the last 3 years of my life, the most present on my mind right now are the discoveries. What I am finding out about myself.
I’ve begun to see things I didn’t used to see before. I am getting glimpses of myself. And what I am finding is a prideful man. There is a terrible arrogance inside of me.
My pride is my blindness. If I don’t monitor it closely, a kind of righteousness can bleed into how I interact with the world. Often I don’t catch it as I’m doing it and only think later why did I do that? Which is an upgrade, by the way, because I didn’t even used to notice it at all.
How petty I can be when I have something smart to say, the thrill when I am challenged and proven right! How petulantly I pout when things don’t go how I think they should, when a person doesn’t behave in accordance to my expectations. I am noticing how deep this pride goes, how much of life can be spent feeding this beast. I crave to be considered brilliant and insightful and also humble and self-aware and kind and generous and curious about God.
Often I think I have something or someone figured out because I believe so deeply in the powers of my intellect and discernment. Fortunately life is providing an inexhaustible list of examples of how horrendously mistaken I can be. Why would I think I have anything or anyone figured out? It’s actually kind of a scary thought.
The irony of course is that I’ve never made more of an active effort in my life to soften, to acquiesce, to stand down and stop fighting as life… happens. And how breathtaking and terrifying and blindingly gorgeous that can be. But it is not long before the pride comes roaring back, like a fresh wave of cavalry in some endless and pointless war I don’t need to be fighting.
The shit I make people put up with! My own arrogance is so ugly to me (when I see it). What a waste of time all of this is, this desire to be admired, this pull to have things figured out.
I do not like everything I am discovering, I have to admit, but I’m glad I am at least seeing things I simply didn’t see before.
The main thing I am trying to do now is just notice the pride when it swells and rears it’s ugly head. To become more aware of its contours, the smell of it’s rancid breathe. Only then can I go about the achingly slow labour of finding acceptance for where I am at and for the person standing there looking back at me in the mirror. And maybe, if I am lucky, start to put down the countless pieces of armor I carry around with me.
Pride is just ignorance. I am ignorant. What have I built that doesn’t rest upon everything I have inherited? What am I without all of my billions of brothers and sisters?
What is mine that isn’t also yours, God?
I really admire this reflection. You're doing great Nathaniel, keep it up! I'm excited to see what Act 2 has to bring.
When you think about it, in humility, true and nourishing rest is found. And it's a daily battle, but that's ok.