Was thinking it was important to consider some of the things I hated about my previous job. One of them was a certain quality of pretentiousness I found myself constantly experiencing during work. Reflecting on that period is leading me to question what it is about pretention that drives people nuts, and yet, why people are drawn to positions that are almost certainly bound to lead to brushing up against a load of pretension.
I'm reviewing this article that explores humility. A few thoughts:
0. Humility in Western society seems to often be tied directly, in a knot, with Christian values. I'm not Christian, and I find it virtually impossible to view the religion without feeling a certain amount of displeasure and disgust at Christianity's sins and foibles. That discomfort with the religion makes viewing humility through that lens an avenue I will not endeavor to take.
1. For a moment, think of what pretentiousness evokes: unjustified or excessive claims of value, exaggerated importance, arrogance, pompousness, disdain, vaingloriousness, self-centeredness, to name just a few. I think the fact that there are so many words that are fundamentally about the same thing, just shades of difference, hints at how big an issue this is for us humans. The opposite word, humility, has quite fewer synonyms, two notable examples being modesty and unpretentiousness.
2. Pretentiousness is a kind of inauthenticity, an untruthfulness in essence. Pretention is a close relative of pretending, hearkening back to praetendere, meaning to stretch, extend. In our modern day world, we find people who stretch truths, extend inauthentic versions of experience to attempt to gain power, money, and quantifiable gain.
3. In our competitive society, rebellious teenagers, younger people starting in the world are told "That's just how it is." Should you try to change this status quo, you run up against brick, concrete, and crap walls. It can make a person trying to operate out of humility, or at the very least, out of a sense of authenticity that isn't about achievement, feel very lost and lonely.
4. And yet, people recognize or at least pay lip service to the idea that life's true meaning, the real worth of this experience we are all currently sharing of living, breathing, eating, crapping, sleeping, seeing beauty, seeing tragedy...the whole shebang is worth it for most people through things that deny pretentiousness. That is, true connections with others, love, service, helping others. These things, some say, are what lead to a good life, a life that when your time is up, you will be able to look back on and have no regret. And not have to lie about it to yourself.
5. Not easy questions, by far. I think of John Paulson, the hedge fund manager who, as portrayed in the book The Greatest Trade Ever. By some of society's standards, he has achieved pinnacles of success, becoming a billionaire, winning an unimaginable sum by taking advantage of systemic flaws in the social fabric. I think he's someone who was made with a drive to earn money. And so that's what he does. It's a fairly simple thing, but the milieu in which he operates is one that I cannot believe isn't oozing with pretentiousness. Can you have a moral compass amidst all that money and power?
More thoughts later.
being afraid to admit I'm not that good or up to par or as good as I expect someone else will want me to be is part of it...
ReplyDeletealso feeling really insecure and inadequate does that also ...
sometimes it's the people I'm around, sometimes it's that a lot of things have happened in my life lately to make me feel vulnerable.. so the bravado is a smokescreen for how I feel inside... most workplaces aren't easy to be vulnerable in.. so you have to carry the shell and the facade with you.. and I suspect it's more true in a more antagonistic field like chemistry or architecture than in a more warm-fuzzy field like... hmm, can't think of one yet.