What if I said, “Well, look at me”? What if you said the same?
Having written more than 1,250 little essays for this website, I might think, “Well, look at me; I’m doing all right. Isn’t that an accomplishment? More than a thousand! Nearly one-a-day, an average 27.8 per month—and that doesn’t include about thirty I started, completed, and junked because I didn’t think you would like them or would think they were grossly flawed. I can remember writing the first just a few years ago.”
But, instead of “Look at me,” I think, “What? Just some essays? What else did I do? Certainly, that body of work pales by comparison to that of the great novelists, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, to that of prolific playwrights like Shaw, and to that of the great essayists like Mencken. It’s time to be a bit underwhelmed by my work both online, in some textbooks, and in reports for government and business. And I had the advantage of modern word processing, something that none of them had to expedite their writing. Now, it’s true that since the first essay, I also helped proofread a few books and essays for others, wrote letters, helped teach some grandkids, did all the usual family stuff, traveled, and spent time on whatever, but still, by comparison with those greats, I greatly underwhelm, to use an oxymoron.”
Take Vladimir (Nabokov, that is) for example. The guy wrote nine novels in Russian and then wrote Lolita, Pale Fire, and more books in English, works too numerous to mention here. But he wasn’t just a novelist who sat jotting notes on index cards or pecking letters on a typewriter. He was also an expert lepidopterist, a translator, and Holy Cow! just about a zillion other things, including poet, lecturer, political philosopher…I’m overwhelmed, and that means he would certainly label my work “underwhelming” unless he were charitable which, I’ve heard tell, he wasn’t much of. I won’t go into more details of his productive life, but I want to mention that having seen what Communism did to Russia and Nazism did to Germany, he anticipated the threat that the New Left of Marcuse imposes on democratic freedom, a Left-leaning that in our current times has been translated into a drive toward “democratic” socialism that so seems to inspire the uninformed young. But back to underwhelming.
It’s not just some writers that would be underwhelmed by my work. Look at people like General George Patton and General George Marshall, both capable of organizing people and materials and expediting projects on enormous scales. Imagine Patton. He was put in charge of forming a tank core from virtually nothing and did so in months. An Olympic pentathlete, bilingual military historian with interest in the arts, Patton did much to turn the tide of war against the Nazis. And Marshall? Well, the Europeans who survived WWII owe him an enduring debt for the kick start he gave to their recovery. In 1953 he became a Nobel laureate, and after his military service, he became both a Secretary of State and a Secretary of Defense. I can’t fill this page with his accomplishments in both peacetime and war. In short, two overwhelming military guys would be underwhelmed by some essays.
So, in retrospect, 1,252 entries here with about a million words don’t make an opus that competes with that of the notable people I’ve named. It’s a lesson in humility for me and maybe for you. Pride is, in my estimation, the “root sin.” In the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, it’s pride that drives them to decide they can defy God and be “like” God. It isn’t some desire to eat some fruit that is sinful; it’s assuming one is the center of the universe. It’s pride that drives any of us to pretentiousness, a fault I found during my career to be chief among academics sealed in the safety of their ivy-covered towers. It’s pride that the Ego supports.
And when we look at those whom the crowds of adoring have elevated to heights of fame and power even in the absence of overwhelming accomplishments like those of Nabokov, Patton, and Marshall, we see how hubris can overwhelm them as they succumb to the fawning hype and constant attention. One need only look at those who need Red Carpet parades, adoring fans, and sycophants to see that in humanity’s history few such “overwhelming” people compare with the prodigiously productive. Sure, maybe those people I do mention here as examples of “overwhelming” individuals suffered from pride and an overly inflated sense of self-worth, but their accomplishments required grueling and incessant hard work, a bit of innate brilliance, and relentless persistence. They weren’t born “overwhelming.”
As long as I can write, I’ll continue to produce little essays, but I will keep reminding myself that in the eyes of the great and few who overwhelm, I’m truly underwhelming.
Having written more than 1,250 little essays for this website, I might think, “Well, look at me; I’m doing all right. Isn’t that an accomplishment? More than a thousand! Nearly one-a-day, an average 27.8 per month—and that doesn’t include about thirty I started, completed, and junked because I didn’t think you would like them or would think they were grossly flawed. I can remember writing the first just a few years ago.”
But, instead of “Look at me,” I think, “What? Just some essays? What else did I do? Certainly, that body of work pales by comparison to that of the great novelists, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Nabokov, to that of prolific playwrights like Shaw, and to that of the great essayists like Mencken. It’s time to be a bit underwhelmed by my work both online, in some textbooks, and in reports for government and business. And I had the advantage of modern word processing, something that none of them had to expedite their writing. Now, it’s true that since the first essay, I also helped proofread a few books and essays for others, wrote letters, helped teach some grandkids, did all the usual family stuff, traveled, and spent time on whatever, but still, by comparison with those greats, I greatly underwhelm, to use an oxymoron.”
Take Vladimir (Nabokov, that is) for example. The guy wrote nine novels in Russian and then wrote Lolita, Pale Fire, and more books in English, works too numerous to mention here. But he wasn’t just a novelist who sat jotting notes on index cards or pecking letters on a typewriter. He was also an expert lepidopterist, a translator, and Holy Cow! just about a zillion other things, including poet, lecturer, political philosopher…I’m overwhelmed, and that means he would certainly label my work “underwhelming” unless he were charitable which, I’ve heard tell, he wasn’t much of. I won’t go into more details of his productive life, but I want to mention that having seen what Communism did to Russia and Nazism did to Germany, he anticipated the threat that the New Left of Marcuse imposes on democratic freedom, a Left-leaning that in our current times has been translated into a drive toward “democratic” socialism that so seems to inspire the uninformed young. But back to underwhelming.
It’s not just some writers that would be underwhelmed by my work. Look at people like General George Patton and General George Marshall, both capable of organizing people and materials and expediting projects on enormous scales. Imagine Patton. He was put in charge of forming a tank core from virtually nothing and did so in months. An Olympic pentathlete, bilingual military historian with interest in the arts, Patton did much to turn the tide of war against the Nazis. And Marshall? Well, the Europeans who survived WWII owe him an enduring debt for the kick start he gave to their recovery. In 1953 he became a Nobel laureate, and after his military service, he became both a Secretary of State and a Secretary of Defense. I can’t fill this page with his accomplishments in both peacetime and war. In short, two overwhelming military guys would be underwhelmed by some essays.
So, in retrospect, 1,252 entries here with about a million words don’t make an opus that competes with that of the notable people I’ve named. It’s a lesson in humility for me and maybe for you. Pride is, in my estimation, the “root sin.” In the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, it’s pride that drives them to decide they can defy God and be “like” God. It isn’t some desire to eat some fruit that is sinful; it’s assuming one is the center of the universe. It’s pride that drives any of us to pretentiousness, a fault I found during my career to be chief among academics sealed in the safety of their ivy-covered towers. It’s pride that the Ego supports.
And when we look at those whom the crowds of adoring have elevated to heights of fame and power even in the absence of overwhelming accomplishments like those of Nabokov, Patton, and Marshall, we see how hubris can overwhelm them as they succumb to the fawning hype and constant attention. One need only look at those who need Red Carpet parades, adoring fans, and sycophants to see that in humanity’s history few such “overwhelming” people compare with the prodigiously productive. Sure, maybe those people I do mention here as examples of “overwhelming” individuals suffered from pride and an overly inflated sense of self-worth, but their accomplishments required grueling and incessant hard work, a bit of innate brilliance, and relentless persistence. They weren’t born “overwhelming.”
As long as I can write, I’ll continue to produce little essays, but I will keep reminding myself that in the eyes of the great and few who overwhelm, I’m truly underwhelming.
RSS Feed