Talent is useless without righteousness.
You are not better than anyone else. Nor are you worse.
Character= influence.
Just a few quick lines from Fame is Infamy. It is a very unconventiona book, since it is composed of short stories, parables, poems, and some lists of truths and lies. Basically all of these things are challenging what the reader, me in this case, believes about purpose or fame. Some of it is pretty funny and/or entertaining, but there are definitely a lot of serious questions and thoughts.
All of the quotes above definitely apply to me. There are some things from the quotes that I can apply to my life, and there are things I see in other people that I most certainly don't want to copy. I have talked a bit before about people's egos, and how it bothers me when people are just flat out amazed with themselves. Let me be clear, I enjoy audacious joking, pretending that I am freakin awesome. And I do like myself, I have a healthy confidence, but I definitely don't have the ego that I joke about. So it really gets on my nerves when people legitimately believe that they are just that cool. It is even worse when they have talent, but lack righteousness. When they have talent, but think they are better than others and treat people like it too. These people have no influence because they have no character. It all ties together.
So those are my thoughts on other people. I will admit that these are things that I need to watch in myself though. As much as I think I have a healthy level of confidence, I have to make sure to keep it in check so that confidence doesn't get misdirected into pride. For example, I like to be a well rounded person, trying to be at least decently versed in academics, athletics, music, religious ideas. So while I am not by any means amazing at any of those factors, I am fine at all of them, so I can get pretty pleased with myself for the whole picture. Which in itself is not bad i believe, as long as I am still working to improve, realizing I am not perfect. The problem comes if and when I start to think this accumulation of moderate talents makes me better than someone else. I would never act on a thought like that, openly acting like I am better than someone, but I may have a thought just out of the blue like "I cant think of anything that they are better than me at," or maybe they just don't look like someone interesting to me. I wouldn't be openly mean or arrogant to them, but I may not talk to them, or keep conversation to a minimum. It is a selfish attitude that says that they can't offer me anything, so I won't bother with them. I think it sounds like a far more severe situation on this blog than what I usually deal with, but it is something that I need to watch out for and pray about.
Even with moderate talents, I need to use them in a righteous manner.
I think I have even referenced this song before, but the song Beggars by Thrice is such a good song for this subject. A few quotes from that song:
As you lie in your bed, does the thought haunt your head that you're really, rather small?
All you big shots that swagger and stride with conceit, did you devise how your frame would be formed?
Can you hear what’s been said?
Can you see now that everything’s grace after all?
If there’s one thing I know in this life: we are beggars all.
Wow that blog turned out really serious. Oh well, I hope you still enjoyed it.
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