The Unbearable Lightness of Being an Airhead
One of the hardest lessons in life was learning that I don't know everything. It's hard admitting to myself that there are things that lurk beyond the limited range of my knowledge. In fact, it's so difficult that my ego often shunts aside that inconvenient truth and pretends it doesn't exist. This, I'm startled to realise, puts me on a par with just about everyone else on the planet.
The occasional awareness of my own fallibility makes me naturally suspicious of confident people. Experience has shown that about 90% of confident people are so because they don't have the brains to be aware of their own shortcomings. Nowadays, whenever I meet someone who exudes an air of self-assurance, I listen to them talk until they say something incriminatingly idiotic. Then I think to myself: Aha! Another flatulent gasbag!
Every now and then, though, I come across someone who's confident because he/she's smart enough to have gotten it all figured out. People like that are aware that they're imperfect, but they've also understood how to work around their imperfections, minimize and (almost) nullify them. I admire such people a lot, if only because of their rarity.
Being an imperfect person, I can't help but also feel a little jealous. We all know life's unfair, but nothing says it so starkly as when you meet someone to whom you know you will never, ever be able to measure up. Life can be cruel that way.
To add insult to injury, it only hurts if you're someone who's able to comprehend your inferiority. I realise people who are unable to see faults in themselves will naturally be unable to grasp how hopeless they are. After all, people seldom bother looking for non-existent shortcomings, when there always extenuating circumstances for one's lack of success.
No doubt about it, the flatulent gasbags have it easy.
The occasional awareness of my own fallibility makes me naturally suspicious of confident people. Experience has shown that about 90% of confident people are so because they don't have the brains to be aware of their own shortcomings. Nowadays, whenever I meet someone who exudes an air of self-assurance, I listen to them talk until they say something incriminatingly idiotic. Then I think to myself: Aha! Another flatulent gasbag!
Every now and then, though, I come across someone who's confident because he/she's smart enough to have gotten it all figured out. People like that are aware that they're imperfect, but they've also understood how to work around their imperfections, minimize and (almost) nullify them. I admire such people a lot, if only because of their rarity.
Being an imperfect person, I can't help but also feel a little jealous. We all know life's unfair, but nothing says it so starkly as when you meet someone to whom you know you will never, ever be able to measure up. Life can be cruel that way.
To add insult to injury, it only hurts if you're someone who's able to comprehend your inferiority. I realise people who are unable to see faults in themselves will naturally be unable to grasp how hopeless they are. After all, people seldom bother looking for non-existent shortcomings, when there always extenuating circumstances for one's lack of success.
No doubt about it, the flatulent gasbags have it easy.
posted by lit @ 10:01 PM
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