On Arrogance
10th July 2021
Severian lists his deficiencies.
And when you come right down to it, it’s the sheer brass balled arrogance of that that made me first a conservative, then a dissident, now a… whatever we are. I often say I’m too lazy to be a Leftist, given how much sheer effort it takes to live like they do. I’m also much too poor, of course — the Champions of the Underclass lead lives that your average maharaja couldn’t afford — but I’m mostly just not arrogant enough. I have my blind spots and my misjudgments about myself, of course I do, everyone does, but one thing I know for certain is that I don’t know how to run your life better than you do.
Yeah, ok, if you’re a gutter drunk, or a homeless drug addict I can run that part of your life for you, since 99.9% of all your problems stem from one single source. But anything more complex than “stop shooting smack all the time,” and I’m totally buffaloed. And even there, the very best I can do — the absolute tippy-top peak of my wisdom — is: “Stop shooting smack all the time.” As for what you should do after that, or how to address your underlying issues, or what those underlying issues even are, I haven’t a clue. Don’t even know how to start getting a clue. Even if you begged me on bended knee to take over your life for you, that’s all I would do, because that’s all I can do.
On the other hand, I am fully convinced that I could run your life better than you could; but I don’t care enough about you to expend the necessary effort. So ha and I wind up in the same place. (My native indolence comes to the rescue.)