The danger of pride

I just got back for a walk through my hometown. I hoped this little jaunt would provide some inspiration, but there's truly nothing in my hometown I have not seen before. In fact, most people have somewhat fond memories of their hometown, on the other hand, I still live there because I cannot afford to live anywhere else. About the only good thing about the personal Rubicons I've had to cross lately is that I might get out of my hometown.

I suppose if you had my experiences with it, you would not exactly be enamored of the place either. All those insults hurled at me years ago were not forgotten, nor do I find it easy to look around me and see what in my mind is such stupidity. I guess it's because one of the little survival mechanisms I developed was a superiority complex. A persecution complex went along with this, but I guess that's somewhat understandable. It helped me to think I was better and somehow smarter than those around me. An attitude which my Mormon background unintentionally helped, I feel. (Cultures do not always realize some of the negative byproducts they create.)

Strangely enough, it was my experiences in Everquest that helped me get over this mindset. It was seeing this behavior from the other side that helped me develop an extreme distaste for it. Why should those "elite" morons think they're better than anyone just because they dedicated more time to a game? Their talk about having skills galled me. Online games are not about skill, they're about the amount of time you put into them which is a major factor in their addictive component. The more time you put in, the greater your reward.

Yet because they deliberately blocked other people from enjoying the same content they did, they somehow felt superior. A tactic which eventually ended after I left because they started to instanced raid zones. A lot of the “top” guilds fell apart then.

The truth is if we perceive ourselves as better than others, chances are we're deluding ourselves in someway. It's easy to do, but it may be necessary to take a step back and realize that we're doing it. Let me correct that a bit. Not only is it easy to do, but thinking you're better than others is in hard not to do sometimes.

I'm not saying we don't have different talents or different skills, but we have to realize that in other areas we have weaknesses and be careful not to succumb to too much pride.