You Can Only Pick One: Confidence or Humility

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/lovespocky.jpg

that picture scares me

The young man stepped into the hall of mirrors
Where he discovered a reflection of himself
Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars discover themselves in the looking glass

Sometimes he saw his real face
And sometimes a stranger at his place
Even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars find their face in the looking glass

He fell in love with the image of himself
and suddenly the picture was distorted
Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars dislike themselves in the looking glass

He made up the person he wanted to be
And changed into a new personality
Even the greatest stars change themselves in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars change themselves in the looking glass

The artist is living in the mirror
With the echoes of himself
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass
Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass

ok, I'll start then. I choose humility because confidence without humility will lead you down the wrong path.

The two needn't negate one another.

the question in this thread is hypothetical. You can't have any ounce of the other.

I can't handle this hypothetical situation because it isn't true. Brane.

than you can't handle any hypothetical questions? Like, if you we're a superhero what would your powers be? (I would shoot blood out of my eyes)

No, I just don't care for ones that would never happen. "Would you rather beblind or deaf?" "...neither?" "NO NO YOU HAVE TO PICK ONE." "But there will never be a situation in which I am forced to choose that." "NO BUT YOU HAVE TO PICK ONE." And then I get a stupor of thought.

Question makes n.s.

¡SI!

Meh, looks like someone needs a diaper change. Personally, I find these type of questions interesting.

they make you think about philosophical stuff or creative stuff.

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CaptainLorax == Ramzi Awn.

WHAT DO YOU LOOK LIKE, JULY JULY?

??????????????????

In spirit, at least.

sorry abbott. I'm on a radical honesty fix lately.

http://www.esquire.com/features/honesty0707

shooting blood out of your eyes doesn't sound very powerful to me, it sounds like a condition someone with high blood pressure and weak leaky eye cells might suffer from.

yeah, I suck at superpowers :/

I pick confidence enough to stab CaptainLorax in the chest with a rusty pickaxe.

i only HAVE confidence, so it's an easy pick

One lizard can shoot blood out of its eyes...or maybe it's a toad. A desert one with spines. Good self-defense mechanism. "Want to eat my delicious body, huh? BAM! BLOOD IS WHAT I SPIT AT YOU." It works because its disturbing. But that says to me the only circumstance in which it would be useful is if you were under threat of being eaten by coyotes in a flat, hot place with no hiding places.

"Radical honesty"≠≠≠≠≠≠≠≠humility, I'll say that much.

The only people I've met or known who have professed to live by "radical honesty" were using it (as an excuse or not) to be a dick. One can be both honest and tactful, for one, and definitely when conversing with strangers. ie the guy in that article, FUCK, he makes an ass of himself, while his 'mentor' just tells him he should've been an even more caustic dickface.

If you're going to be a schmuck, at least you should find some redeeming quality in it. Blanton's a master of this. One of his tricks is to say things with such glee and enthusiasm, it's hard to get too pissed. "You may be a petty asshole," he says, "but at least you're not a secret petty asshole." Then he'll laugh.

I have yet to learn that trick myself. Consider how I handled this scene at a diner a couple of blocks from my apartment.

"Everything okay?" asked our server, an Asian man with tattoos.

"Yeah, except for the coffee. I always have to order espresso here, because the espresso tastes like regular coffee. The regular coffee here is terrible. Can't you guys make stronger coffee?"

The waiter said no and walked away. My friend looked at me. "I'm embarrassed for you," he said. "And I'm embarrassed to be around you."

"I know. Me, too." I felt like a Hollywood producer who parks in handicapped spots. I ask Blanton what I should have done.

"You should have said, 'This coffee tastes like shit!' " he says, cackling.

There is NEVER any reason to make the statement, "I'm an asshole, but..." (or "you're an asshole, but" for that matter).

I inform our twenty-seven-year-old nanny that "if my wife left me, I would ask you out on a date, because I think you are stunning."

She laughs. Nervously.

"I think that makes you uncomfortable, so I won't mention it again. It was just on my mind."

I would've quit, right then and there.

I'm not quite sure what having not one single ounce of confidence would mean. Does that mean you have to hate yourself and think you fail at everything, or is there some level of sane and realistic self-image that doesn't quite count as confidence? Because I would pick humility in theory, definitely, but not if it meant I had to sit in a corner crying and afraid to move because I thought I was so awful.

xpost

Yeah, like in that diner situation, in employing "radical honesty" it would seem that he's just lucky that the server (who was "an Asian man with tattoos"-- wtf is the point of including that detail?) didn't spit in his food.

I think it's down at the moment, but Rick Ross' website on cults has some dirt on Blanton and his seminars... I can't remember the nature of the controversies, but he definitely has a background in est/Landmark-type stuff, so it's not surprising that he would create this philosophy encouraging people to be act out their asshole-ishness.

And the nanny thing, wow...Blanton's dismissal of sexual harrassment in the workplace is unbelievably glib and simple-minded. "Society's just too uptight, man..."

Oh god, my neighbors are writers and it is their fucking DREAM of dreams to pull off some more assholish est type thing along the lines of this guy. They talk about it all the time, and start shouting if I disagree morally and logically with them (even mildly, ie saying, "Oh, I don't know about that.") They're convinced they can make the world a better place this way.

They were supposed to move out on Friday and I was so, so relieved and excited. Then it turns out our realty company doesn't want to give them their deposit, in cash, the day they moved out. Which no realty company does. They're sitting in the house until they get their deposit, acting like they're freedom riders or something because of it. God, I have to hear about it every time I go outside to curb my dog or smoke. It's like living next door to the world's most boring Waco.

Hah, that's hilarious. How old are these people?

The woman is a French lady who has been in America for 27 years and still doesn't have a green card, the man is a 75-year-old toothless emphysematic who sits in bed with his oxygen tank watching Westerns. He yells at me FROM INSIDE HIS HOUSE when he wants me to come over (this is when his wife isn't around). I came over the first couple times expecting some medical emergency. It turns out he wanted me to find his cigarettes & then light one for him. ARGH

(Woman is 50, btw. They are married.)

She has all these "life-changing slogans" hung on their walls that they've come up with over the years all over the house. ie:

-LET DIVERSITY BE YOUR UNIVERSITY
-WOMAN WHO FLY SOLO HAVE CRACK-UP
-LOOK FOR THE SERENITY "ANSWER"

She's calligraphed them onto paper plates shaped like hearts.

Whoa.

At least they make for a crazy story, or for entertainment for friends who visit you and can witness the insanity firsthand.

I like how that third slogan, in addition to not making any sense, has the classic indicative-of-insanity gratuitious use of quotation marks.

Hah, whenever I tell people about them, that's what they say. "You could get a good short story out of it at least." And I bet I will someday. But even being around them is draining...I can't imagine writing (and then revising) ALL of the 1482 fucked up things they've said and done since moving here.

Speaking of radical honesty, Jill (the woman, obv.) asked me, "So, what thing do you most hate about me? What would you change?" I couldn't think of an answer (being put on the spot PLUS most of her qualities are bad), which I told her, and she yelled at me for not being able to tell her. !!! So I told her, "Well, when you yell at me. I wish you wouldn't yell." And she said, "Don't blame me, things have been bad lately."

I hate it when you sneeze.

When you blink, it drives me insane.

That exchange is hilarious.

Well, when the time is right, and you feel up to it, hopefully you can do a retrospective thread with anecdotes about them...something along the lines of the "Rolling 'Living With a Gay Porn Photographer' Thread", or the Matos' stepfather stories thread.

"Yes, when a young man kills much meat he comes to think of himself as a chief or a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So we always speak of his meat as worthless. This way we cool his heart and make him gentle."

ignoring the dumb thread premise, I couldn't find another place to put this.

so - in regards to having some humility and being able to admit when you fall short and apologize when apologies are necessary - have any of you found this to be more difficult as you get older, or that it really has little to do with that and more with other things?

I tended (well, OUTSIDE of this board at least) to be better at recognizing when I had fucked up and making sure to give an earnest apology for it. I didn't have that temptation to double down on bad behavior. I didn't even have this problem so much in my mid-30s. but nowadays I fine myself more defensive than ever, and it's not a particularly easy battle to win, like I have to stop myself from kneejerk reacting, force myself to be patient, and sometimes I can never get myself to accept I'm wrong and force myself to apologize any way, and it's just nasty cognitive dissonance city.

I can't figure out why. most of the rationalizations I came up with feel more like outright excuses - "I've had one-sided friendships that I've grown to resent over the years and this is the way I've subconsciously dealt with no speaking up about my feelings" - meh, no. I did that in my 20s and 30s as well, never lead me to apply the behavior to everybody.

"I've been easily manipulated in the past and have very low self-esteem so I have having trouble telling when I'm right vs when someone is being out of line to me" a little more believable, but again....not a new thing for me, yet I still used to have the internal switch that told me "Neanderthal, you fucked up, say sorry".

current theory = inability to put any criticism in context, accept that some people just won't like me for reasons beyond my control, my inability to disengage from toxic people without rationalizing w/ them to get them over to my side....leaves me feeling mentally drained and then a well-intentioned criticism from someone else who isn't toxic afterwards sets off an agitated response due to my fatigue from previous convo with toxic person. idk, that one makes a little more sense, doesn't excuse it, but I at least get it.

just kinda curious if anybody else has found a struggle with this. like today even a friend gave a criticism that I wasn't listening to them well because i kept forgetting things they told me and it seemed like a fairly reasonable concern and I had to fight making excuses/pushing back before I apologized , it was like every part of me internally wanted me to fight it and I don't remember being like this as a young adult.