"Check out the glorious stuff I've done!"
"I am humbled to invite you to check out the glorious stuff I've done!"
"I may have done a thing or two!"
"I'm just a simple pizza deliveryman!" [said with a wink]
Levels 1A, 1B, and 1C are backtrack. More prideful than Level 1, not less. Glory is further augmented by a glorious display of modesty. Awareness of pride stokes pride of awareness!
"I'm just a simple pizza deliveryman." [said without a wink]
At this point, you're viscerally letting go of your own legend. This surrender, paradoxically, stokes (as explained here) greater accomplishment...which is more challenging to let go of. In an immense circle of hilarious irony, the universe shoves accomplishment down the throats of modest people.
It brings to mind an old saw about politics: "The people most eager to hold power are often the least qualified to wield it." Draw down deeper for a less eager, more qualified candidate, and, nine times out of ten, they'll "grow into the role" and shmuckify.
Per that same dynamic, when the modest earn their power-ups, most revert straight to Level 1. "Check out the glorious stuff I've done!" But for the few able to swim against the swelling tide, two levels of further modesty remain:
"I'll erase my tracks so no one calls me glorious!"
A remarkable guy named Maurice Friedman had hidden but pivotal impact on a wide range of twentieth century issues and institutions, but we'll never know about most of them because, being a bit of a saint (seriously), he laboriously erased his own tracks.
David Godman, a skillful researcher and talented writer, has reconstructed some of it (I highly recommend this interview with Godman, and and this article by him).
The problem is that tracks-erasing is just another form of glorification. Why work so eagerly to erase glory if it's not glorious? If it really didn't matter, you wouldn't waste the precious time/effort. We blithely flush our shit down the toilet; we don't launch it into space or zap it with lasers, and we certainly don't seek out and expunge third party accounts of our ever having stepped into a bathroom.
Self tracks-erasers protest too much!
"I'm an ant"
As I once wrote,
I'm like an ant. I'll very contentedly reconstruct a smashed anthill, one grain at a time, even amid multiple re-smashings.
To human beings, I suppose this seems sad. Humans aspire to grander dreams than endless drudging anthill reconstruction. They're taught to rage at the smashing.
But to ants, human beings - who grow ever more crippled and demoralized with every inevitable reversal, and who only with great weighty effort manage to soldier on - are the sad ones.
This is the essense of karma yoga, which I've written about extensively. Head down. Stay in the flow. Do the thing. And refrain from sniffing your own farts. Appraise only insofar as it spurs you to invest still greater love, care, effort, and nuance. Don't misuse your appraisal engine to conjure tales of attainment.
Zen Buddhism, which describes an ultimate goal of "chop wood, carry water", frames the most ant-like end point, while karma yogis are loosely imagined to go out in some blaze of glory, comically missing the point of the whole thing.
I understood the ironic circle as a child, and worried that if I managed to become truly ant-like (i.e. fully locked into flow and invested in love, care, effort, and nuance) I'd be disturbed by people reassuring me that I'm certainly no ant.
It's turned out not to be a problem.
Previous postings on pride and modesty:
Modesty, Heroes, God, and Singers
Going All the Way in One's Shmuckery
Modesty, Arrogance, and Political Correctness
Kafkaesque
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