mea culpa

"the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist"

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my self enhancement bias may be more severe and resistant than most

keep catching myself feeling unsettlingly superior. the only reason for an overwrought pantomime of humility is an infernal belief that one is better than one's peers.

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Self-enhancement bias is a scary scary thing. Almost biological, almost viral in its persistence, its capability for self-preservation. That's a thing right, a meme being a virus of the mind. Ideas have their own life-cycle, independent of their hosts. They spread, cling to, take root in a person. Take over them. Propogate. Essentially, what I'm saying is, isn't it ironic - and terrifying - how being lulled into believing that you are exceptionally afflicted with a more innocuous, less virulent strain of self-enhancement bias is itself a function of your self-enhancement bias.

we think the moment you recognise / realise who the villain is he is vanquished. that's all there is to it, right? shout at the protagonist on stage, turn around! the monster is behind you! The hero slays his adversary and the play goes on. You believe he is erased. In fact he has merely disappeared. Sauntering through steps in the dark, he re-enters through the back, sidles in comfortably two seats down in the row just behind you, watching from the shadows, enjoying the irony. he wears a sinister smirk, observing the oblivious. chimps in a cage. savouring your ignorance, your false sense of security. that idiotic grin as you relax into the chair, believing that all is well. and then after the show he follows you home

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the humblest man

he climbed for days to reach the peak. having done so he stood from the mountaintop and proclaimed to the town below: 'Hear me! All, repent! Realise your pride and become like me!'

A man walking past yelled back, 'Why do you stand so high up? come down from there!' The humblest man thus replied, 'No I must stay here and be an example to the world. They are filled with pride and self-deception. I have come to show them the way.'
'Who sent you?' asked the man.
'Please do not waste my time with questions, I am busy. Better for you to realise that you are not as humble as I am and repent,' the humblest man replied.
'How do you know that?' asked the man.
'My dear man,' the humblest man said, exasperated, 'I have evicted my sins. I have spent years meditating and training under masters and mentors far greater than I. Under their tutelage I have been humbled many times. I have received instruction upon instruction and rebuke upon rebuke. Countless times have I been punished and shown to be lacking. Through this intense and tireless fire, one thing has been made irrevocably clear to me, and that is this: I have nothing to be proud of. When I compare myself to those greater than myself, I have no reason, no right to be proud. When I beheld this truth, I was set free from the clutches of vanity. Now I have not a shred of pride left in me. Now I preach my testimony in the hopes of helping others recognise this grave and deadly sin.'
'Could you not also do that from the foot of the mountain?'
'You do not understand, friend, for you have not been made humble and wise like I have.'
The man below then shouted something the humblest man could not hear and went away.
Throughout the day, similar exchanges took place, but the humblest man managed to convert not even one of the town's folk.
'How strange,' thought he, 'why can they not see how humble I am? I think
it must be their pride,' the humblest man concluded, and continued about his mountaintop ministry.