Question for the world! Is pride okay or not?
I read a LOT of Christian writings-despite not being Christian myself at any point, though I came close a few times-and in those Pride is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, as you know.
Read Mere Christianity sometime for a good potted summary. Pride is defined there as enmity between humans and other humans, between humans and God. Pride takes no pleasure out of having something-only out of having more than someone else. Pride is what drives people to ride roughshod over people, just cause they can. Pride is when you don't care what people think of you, cause the only opinion you care about is your own...
And I believed this, y'know. Not cause I was spoonfed it-well, maybe a bit-but because I KNOW I can be an insufferable prig at times. A snob of major proportions.
Only...
Only I've been reading recently about some other ideas. Like 'constructive ego'. This idea threw me for a loop a bit-always has.
A voice-yeah, another one-turned up in my head. He's not so disassociated from 'me' as the other voices...sometimes it feels like he's a mask I wear, or I'm a mask he wears, and neither of us can tell which. I can't love or hate him because he's too close to really being me.
Let's call him Gold.
Gold is proud. He takes no crap from anyone. He likes to be acclaimed and praised-he doesn't suffer from the stagefright that I do-and he's not ashamed to admit it. He doesn't scuttle around with his head down.
Gold thinks he has a right to be who he is. He doesn't have to apologise for it, and he doesn't have to pay for the right to exist. In a 'discussion group' here with some other patients, one woman said unhappily that she felt she was useless, no good in the world, and didn't deserve to live because of it, that it'd be better for the world if she was dead. Everyone started saying things like no, I'm sure you've done good-did you ever see that movie
Clarence, small things you've done might have big consequences-you must have done Good Things whether you think so or not.
And Gold spoke up through my mouth, and said that answers like that were well-meaning but they were wrong at a basic level. You have the right to exist, he said. You don't have to pay for your life by doing good works. It's good if you do, of course, it's good to be a good person. But you don't have to work at deserving your life. Me, I was born. The rest of the world just has to put up with it.
He got given some astonished looks, and then a round of applause.
I'd have expected Gold to be pure selfish bastard, but he isn't, which continually surprises me. He has this weird but genuine respect for other people that seems to come of viewing them as equals. You aren't above me, so don't get on your high horse and ride over me. You aren't below me either, so don't bow and scrape. We can look each other in the eyes.
He's free to be kind, too...Another thing that surprises me. But after that discussion group Debbie-the one friend I have here, though she's an outpatient now-was feeling depressed. It was Gold who went to cheer her up, hugged her and invited her out for a meal in town, took her mind off the bad stuff with friendly talk till she felt better.
Humane. That's the word. He's weirdly, unexpectedly humane.
He's not good, and I don't know about nice-he's too sarcastic for that! And I don't know if he's right, either...
...Despite all this, though, I want him to stay.
When I'm Gold, I feel strong.
But I worry that I'm...well...Sinning.
I just don't know.
