The work of some insightful people, even some geniuses, is lethally flawed by their compulsive need to justify themselves -- past, present, and future.
And this compulsion works like a cancer on integrity and honesty; until it has subverted then destroyed a person's ability to make a positive and valuable contribution.
In other words, no matter how able you may be; if you are a Right Man - that is, a man who is compelled to prove, by everything he says and writes, that he was always ultimately right about everything.
(Or, on those rare occasion that he was "wrong", this was somebody else's fault!)...
Then, no matter that you have produced good work you will first become a tedious bore, and later end-up by ruining your own legacy of good work.
All you did that was worthwhile, gets buried deep under a sediment of self-aggrandizing rationalizations and exculpatory explanations.
And by insisting that everything you ever thought, said, or did was actually part of an elaborate and perfect scheme and strategy - you will merely ensure that anyone who cannot accept your infallibility lock, stock and barrel; will be compelled to discard the baby of valid truth you originated.
The baby goes does the drain; because of the necessity to throw-out a vast reservoir-full of tendentious, defensive, ego-promoting, dirty-bathwater.
6 comments:
Ego defense is the motivation of the natural man, the intellectual flesh. When the spirit integrates with the body it forms a self-reflective man, or a soul, capable of seeing the ego objectively - this is consciousness. The soul does not always manifest, is a candle flame rather than a constant companion, but virtue is sweet to it where it is opaque to the natural man.
Fortunately, I have never felt the slightest need to justify myself. Or if I have, it was someone else’s fault.
@Wm - Ha! Nice one.
(I thought your freedom from a need for S-J, might have been because you have never been wrong.)
Most of us are social inferiors in our most important social interactions. Justifying actions to social superiors may be our most practiced form of speech. I speculate, for most of us, inner narrative is a continuous rehearsal of such self-justification. It's a hard habit to break!
@Crosbie - "It's a hard habit to break!"
Especially when someone is not even trying.
This habit also comes between us & God.
A deep awareness of how sinful we are helps keep this tendency in check.
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