Sunday, October 07, 2007
Is being orgulous the same as being arrogant?
Orgulous is Mirriam-Webster's word of the day, and I felt compelled to use it in a sentence. Orgulous means to be proud, and as it is used in their contextual example seems to be synonymous with arrogance, so yes, I would agree that being orgulous is akin to being arrogant. Arrogance, as we all know, is defined as "exaggerating or disposed to exaggerate one's own worth or importance often by an overbearing manner". Similarly, pride is defined as "the quality or state of being proud: as a : inordinate self-esteem : CONCEIT b : a reasonable or justifiable self-respect c : delight or elation arising from some act, possession, or relationship". So being called proud, arrogant, or orgulous carries some negative connotations.
The real question for me is, with so many things humbling us at all times, how can anyone maintain a visage of arrogance? For me personally, the most humbling aspect of my life is my living situation. There's no way to be proud while renting a room from your parents. It simply isn't possible. That's not to say I am ashamed, but I am certainly not proud, and find myself most assuredly humbled.
Serving up another large slice of humble pie that I am forced to consume is my art. I have very little experience with paint and as a result, I am completely inadequate in using it as a means of expressing my thoughts and intentions. I'm learning, but I have a long road to hoe(ho?) before I will have any reasonable level of skill in the medium. Considering the fact that art is what I plan to focus the next few years of my life on it, this is a very humbling reality. The only things I have to be proud of are things you can't touch, which mean little or nothing beyond the boundaries of my skull, in the grand scheme of things.
There are a nearly limitless number of other reasons for me to be humble, yet I still have to check my pride on a regular, if not constant, basis. It seems we are hard-wired with a penchant for cognitive dissonance. We forget the shameful things we have done, or the humbling experiences we have had, when considering the shames or struggles of others. It seems almost impossible to fully overcome such logic traps, as I know that I find myself stepping into them all the time.
Of course, there are limits to empathy, but these limits are completely relative to our own personal experiences. We can empathize to the degree we relate to the context of what the person is experiencing. We can be humble, yet still see someone acting "stupid" or in a manner we judge to be inferior. We have to do this, as it is the only way to make rational sense of the world. Our understanding of what we see and the judgments we make are byproducts of our internal value process. But I've been down this road a hundred times before...
Point is, I can empathize with what I perceive to be honest, hard-working, genuine people, but I can't empathize with someone like Britney Spears. I can relate to the working class proletariat, but have no connection to the upper class aristocracy. At the same time, I have a low tolerance for what I understand stupidity and weakness to be, so I have little or no empathy for people exhibiting stupidity or weakness on a regular basis in their lives. In no uncertain terms, I perceive myself to be better or superior to such people, despite my obviously humble roots and circumstances. No matter how cognitively aware I am of the subjectivity in this sort of thinking, I fall prey to it. So I'm lead to believe that our struggle with orgulous inclinations is constant and pervasive.
And I guess that's the point, although the only real reason I started this post was to see if I could formulate a post based on M-W.com's word of the day. Success of failure, you decide! :)
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*row to hoe.
take a deep breath. you have a lot of talent and a lot of integrity. pride can be healthy. all things in moderation, and such.
i do, however, think you're going to need to come to terms with the reality that most of the "proletariat" with whom you so identify is pretty damn stupid. it's okay to empathize without condoning, LOL.
No, it's "road to ho or hoe", thank you very much. :)
I have some talent, we'll see what I can do with it as my experience builds. I'm actually surprised at how much trouble I'm having...that's what I get for being orgulous!
Don't get the wrong idea. I can relate to the proles because I am born and bred of the proletariat. That said, much of what they do with and to their bodies is way beyond anything I could get behind, so to speak. ;)
psh, you should know better by now than to challenge me on grammar!
see?
Alright, so it's "road to ho". Whatever! The point is, I'm at the very beginning of a long journey. :)