What's the Point?

“An arrogant person considers himself perfect. This is the chief harm of arrogance. It interferes with a person's main task in life—becoming a better person.”

-???????Leo Tolstoy

I came across this quote on social media today, and it struck a chord. So much so that I shared it with an old friend, Buddy. In his response, after “word to your mother” (we communicate with each other like the biggest dorks we can possibly be), Buddy shared that this is why “pride was considered the worst of all sins. It robbed the self of purpose and murdered the person you were to become.” This description of the effects of pride also resonated with me.

Thinking of how insularity prevents us from learning, I was reminded of situations in which, whether within myself, while working as a therapist, or while leading others, I’ve seen insecurity lead to defensiveness and a similar resistance to feedback or self-reflection. It seems that opposite ends of what we might call the doubt/arrogance continuum can produce very similar if not identical results. Either end of the continuum is unhealthy and limits our growth.

This kind of trouble with polarization is familiar territory. My friend, Kayla, and I have presented at several professional conferences examining this topic. In addition to some analysis of our nation’s socio-political landscape, we’ve gone through slide after slide of Karpman’s Drama Triangle, the communication continuum, attunement and boundaries, attachment and detachment, and many more therapeutic concepts that illustrate the same pattern. Neither polarized or extreme stance functions well, and the midpoint can usually be seen as the home of a healthy self. I admit that I’ve become somewhat obsessed with this pattern and I often send Kayla links or snippets of information I find related to this topic. It keeps going on and on, and we have never abandoned the idea of revising our materials and giving updated versions of this presentation.

Today was slightly different, though. This idea that the opposite sides of the continuum get the same or very similar results combined with Buddy’s description of pride having been considered the “worst sin” reminded me of something I first found in Alan Watts’ work; “the Greek word for sinning means to miss the point.” There’s a commonality between the Greek and Hebrew words for sin and terms used in those languages related to archery. It occurred to me that, when an arrow misses the target, it matters very little on which side of the mark it went. A miss is a miss, and the result is very similar.

It’s interesting to interpret "sin" as missing our true purpose or aim. What is the target, then? What is the mark that we aim for? This seems to be a central question in our search for meaning and our definition of what our “better person” could or would be. Part of the beauty of the search lies in the fact that it is different for each individual. We really can’t answer these questions for each other. We can only ponder for ourselves. What will we be if we neither think too much nor too little of ourselves to allow ourselves to continue to grow and change; to improve? What if we don't miss the point?

Concerning both the “doubt/arrogance continuum” and our willingness to change, I think The Avett Brothers closely matched my hopes in the song “The Perfect Space”:

“I wanna to have pride like my mother has

And not like the kind in the bible that turns you bad

I wanna have friends that I can trust

That love me for the man I’ve become and not the man that I was”