Monday 2 October 2000

Pic of the day: Hear me, readers! I am no longer the man you knew. I am fire, and pride incarnate! Now and forever, I am ... Prometheus!

-With the usual apologies to Marvel Comics, for twisting the lines of their unforgettable Phoenix. And no, relax ... there are limits even to my

Pride

The other day, I was notified about a fascinating new diary related project: Torn Curtains. Now, that takes courage. (Or stupidity, as I use to say, but we're talking online diarists here, the intellectual creme of the crop, right?) I was also fond of their first project: Seven deadly sins. "Pride. Lust. Envy. Wrath. Sloth. Gluttony. Greed." Now if they added verbosity, I'd be set ...

I'm not really a "collab" person, and besides, I don't think I could do even two of these sins justice without the diary bursting all its seams. So I'll just start with the core sin, and certainly so for me. Pride.

***

Is pride a sin at all? I remember discussing this with my brother once, after we had been to a meeting of "Smith's Friends", the folks who taught me most of what I know about sin and virtue. They had nothing good to say about pride, but my youngest brother disagreed. To be proud of what you do is right, he insisted.

I'm not so sure, but I have come to understand that the word "pride" describes more than one thing. There is a pride that is at its core joy, the sense of accomplishment, the delight in making something real. This pride does not need to belittle others, though it may carelessly work that way sometimes. It is not the same as arrogance, but rather tempered with a kind of thankfulness or praise to the forces of life. A pride that wishes to share a good thing, in a childish and innocent way. I have known it, and I can see how people would feel ... proud of it.

But I also feel that all pride, even the most innocent, has the seed of corruption in it. If you are proud on a regular basis, it may be hard to not feel superior to those who seem to have nothing to show for them. And it most certainly can cause envy and offense in others. To live around someone who is constantly proud of himself can get on the nerves of a saint. The umpteenth time they come announcing that they've jogged one more hour and lost yet another pound, your knuckles will go white on their own accord! :)

***

As a small child, I was raised with a deep sense of self-worth by my loving, caring parents. By the time I started school, however, I was rudely awakened to another reality. I was a sickly child, small and weak. In the world of school boys, I was worthless. I was a misfit, ridiculous and deplorable. (Not that they would know what "deplorable" meant, much less how to spell it.) It was quite a culture shock for me. People react differently to these things. The first two years at school, I actually lost weight (and I wasn't exactly big when I started). It took its toll on me. But over time, I built a defense. A defense of pride.

Unable to lose my sense of self worth, I concluded instead that it was the rest of the world that was Just Plain Wrong. I started to hold the other boys in a similar contempt that they held me. I would not grovel before people who were halfway between the apes and me! From then on, my path and that of humans started to diverge.

***

Around the age of 15, I met God and decided to become one. The gospel of perfection fit me quite well. Oh, it did not work immediately; but I was sure it was just a matter of time and I would be perfect like my Heavenly Father was perfect. I'm not sure, but I think I may have been insufferable for some years there. I was quite holy; but at least I was fairly bright and cheerful much of the time. It could have been worse, I could have been holy and whiny. (This happened too, but I've seen it worse.)

As a fundamental christian, I knew the Bible and its focus on humility. I tried to add humility to my many virtues, and was sometimes quite proud of how humble I had become. But there were things that did not make much sense to me at all. And as the years crept by, I started to see myself more and more. I started to understand that I still needed forgiveness after years and years as a christian. And that other people also needed forgiveness. That we were "in the same boat".

***

I am worried by the sheer collossal scope of the pride I hide within. More than my dark side, I fear to let people see my light side. How far I actually went in my attempt to crush my human side, as I thought of it, in order to become a godlike being. As my humanity unravelled, there grew other entities within me, partial personalities, or complexes as Jung called them.

There was my dark side, the beastly impulses, growing in the dark cellar of the mind. As a young adult, I met it again and again in my dreams: An orgy of violence, of murder and rape and revenge. As my awareness increased, I could see the shadow me in its cage, rattling its barred door. And when we read in the papers about horrible crimes of senseless violence and perversity, a friend would say: "I cannot understand. It must be someone insane." But I could understand.

And there was the other side ... the pride. It too grew in its isolation, and it took on an archetype of old. It became Prometheus, the incarnation of information, after the legendary titan who stole the fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. This came after the years when I found that almost nothing was impossible for me that I took on in terms of computer programming. I know I was puffed up by that, but it went deeper. It was a life of accumulated pride that gravitated to that image. Until I feared that it would take over my life, that it would overwhelm my daily persona.

For various reasons, that hasn't happened so far. I have now reached an age where it is finally obvious to me that I'm well and truly mortal. I find humility in small things in daily life, and of course this journal helps too... I balance my various inclinations, and taken together they form the outline of a human. An unusual human, perhaps; but then again, "we are all unique". And I, for one, am proud of it.