Why do we wish to be remembered by people who never knew us personally? And what do we long to be remembered for? Our financial power and generosity? The work we achieved thanks to the co-operation of colleagues, not to mention favourable circumstances? To be sure, feeling happy about one’s success is not wrong. But, I’m never sure where permissible pride ends and vanity begins. To complicate matters, permissible pride in oneself is often vanity in others. So I thought I would seek to understand this with my readers through examples and reflections.
ANONYMOUS BENEFACTORA few weeks after her passing, the family of a surgeon found papers relating to a substantial donation she had made to a hospital to build a ward for children. This great lady’s only condition: total anonymity. To this day, outside her immediate family, no one knows of her magnanimity which made possible the care, comfort and cure of countless children. This is true service: helping unknown beneficiaries, and negating the self from the giving.
How different this is from grandiose statements and plaques fixed outside halls, charitable institutions, even structures on sanctified premises which proclaim the generosity of the donor complete with name and figure. Mind you, the donors are kind and open-handed people, but, for them, the contribution they make has to be recorded for posterity, often, literally carved in stone. Another example is the poor relation whose gratitude for his support is expected to be expressed personally and publicly — and sometimes even carried over to the next generation.
Another kind of vanity has nothing to do with giving but everything to do with a person’s grandiose opinion of himself. Let us look at a man who constantly lectures everyone about his own moral worth, about how outstanding and honest he is and how everyone else should be like him. He truly believes that no one has overcome adversity and resisted temptation as successfully as he. The truth is that he is unfeeling and disdainful; he talks about compassion but lacks it; he writes about caring and being responsible but stops with writing. He is blind to the fact that his actions do not match his words, and a conversation with him is impossible, because you’ll need all the angels to save you if you disagree with him. If only he had read Blaise Pascal — “Do you wish people to think well of you? Don't speak well of yourself.” What a pity that this brilliant personality is incapable of seeing or acknowledging any virtue or good quality in anyone but himself.
VANITY TRAPAll religions and myths warn against vanity, self-praise and self-love. From Greece comes the story of Narcissus who admired himself so deeply that he couldn’t look away from his own reflection in the water. Since he couldn’t bring himself to look up to see or appreciate those who loved him, he couldn’t return their love. Not even thirst or hunger comes between his obsession with his reflection. What a tragedy to die unable to relate to anything but an image of oneself. Don’t we all know that the contemporary culture of advertising promotes this instinct? Advertising makes us believe that wearing a certain brand of deodorant or shirt or driving the latest model in cars will make us better human beings.
When we move with friends, colleagues or relatives, we are dealing with people, each bristling with prejudice and driven by a great need to be acknowledged as worthy of respect. Some people want to be admired, some want to be feared, some people feel comfortable only if they can put someone else down sarcastically and forcefully. Do we not all know family members who enjoy making fun of an ungainly or silent youngster or of someone who hasn’t done too well in life? Then there is the impressive display of reading, and recounting of experiences and information…yet another case of one’s vanity on parade.
I’m certain that we all think about the difference between pride and vanity. Family pride, caste pride, national pride are words that are used quite frequently. What are these words worth? “Where’s your pride? Are you going to sit around feeling sorry for yourself? Get up and do something!” is what a person who is facing a temporary bad patch is told. Sometimes pride blocks us from expressing our true feelings for fear that we might be rejected or laughed at. Sometimes pride helps us, not permitting us to lower ourselves when we are afraid or in need but are hesitant to ask.
What do you feel? Does pride relate to our opinion of ourselves and vanity to what we would like others to think of us? Surely being mindful of the difference will help us to be kinder, better human beings.
Email: minioup@gmail.com
Published - March 20, 2016 05:00 pm IST
