Honest Arrogance

I am the greatest person on the Earth... period.

Is this statement unfounded for the average person? I guess a better question is, should this attitude pervade every aspect of our modern culture?

Questions like these naturally indicate something deeper occurring in the asker. So what is touching me down to the core?

A good friend of mine recently asked me a very poignant question to which my first response was a dishonest hesitation. The question - "Don't you think that everyone wants to be great?? Do you think that anyone in their right mind sets out with the goal that, 'Huh, I'm only going to be moderately mediocre"? I sat and I looked at my friend across the table for a moment. Was this an honest question itself? I couldn't help but see the motivations that pushed it in front of me.

To offer a bit of background, I had just outlined my plan for international service and education that I plan to pursue through AIESEC and other venues. I explained how I wanted to live a life of purpose, and that I wanted to do something great for the world. In between and crossing over the lines were counterarguments of responsibility to those you most care about, and to those who most care about you.

I responded to that question with a stammered, "Well yeah, I would hope so...", mostly out of fear of offending my conversation partner who, as well as I, wants to, "Make a difference in the world." In my center, however, I wanted to reply with a resounding, "NO"!

Let me qualify my last exclamation, for I do not want to come off as a crass individual. Greatness, like so many other personal and social qualities, depends on subjective qualifications of what indeed personifies the "Being of Great." In my honest arrogance, let me describe what personifies mine.

In a phrase, greatness is a love beyond self. Of course, the term beyond encompasses the expanse surpassing that which you can see all the way to the point of seeing - that being, of course, You. Therefore, as arrogantly honest as I can be, greatness means loving one's self enough to truly be able to love every person that you encounter.

As might be expected by the unfolding of my brief recount of this tale, I was ill-equipped at the time of the conversation to articulate these sentiments. Yet until that conversation I was living with this idea of greatness in mind, and then over the course of several weeks, I began to feel victimized for holding such an ideal.

There I said it - Ideal. I may as well come out and be forthright, as I began with my honest arrogance, that I am, indeed, an Idealist. Yet my ideals are adaptive, which lends itself to a whole other entry.

In ending, I offer this humble statement amidst the choking arrogance. I want to be Great in terms similar to those which I described. I want to maintain a confident love for myself so that I may be able to share such love with each individual whom I encounter. I want not to pursue great acts, but a great way of doing them.

I pursue this "Being of Great."

Personhood, Herehood

It's been more than six months since I returned home from my travels abroad. It is only recently that here has once again become home. For the first time in the last two years, I have stayed in one place, one community for more than five months. It is an interesting adaptation. There are different responsibilities one has, connections with people that anchor and hold. At times it is hard to accept. For so long I have been able to recreate my identity by changing places and people - a constant rebirth and a clean slate - another chance to be the person I always wanted to be... Who that person is, the one I always wanted to be, of course changed along with the times and places as well.

Coming back to an identity that I thought I had left behind was difficult, to be brief. I fought old ties, old connections, old loves... In some instances I was successful. In most I was not. Of course, the successes I enjoyed were more a series of adaptations and reintegrations that enabled me to synthesize the person I left with the person I discovered to then realize the person that I am.

Dynamic is the life on the move. Liberating is the anonymity of the sole traveler in the train. Discovery is each new person with whom a brief moment of honesty is achieved. Empowering is the passion that breeds inspiration.

Right now I am here, at another home. I am always Here. Forever will I be Here.