Ego shortage

What a lot of problems egos cause. All those over-the-top individuals who demand that we keep admiring them, pumping them up, fawning all over them. What hard work it is to feed their absurd pretensions.

At least if someone has an obvious ego, you can make a point of avoiding them. It's trickier when someone has an ego but pretends they don't and you get sucked in. They seem modest enough, but scratch the surface and there's the familiar self-importance and craving for attention and adulation.

I don't have much ego myself (no, really....). I've no desire to be seen as important or the centre of attention or a role model or a trend-setter. I'm happy to be anonymous and unremarkable. My impulse when surrounded by other people is not to have all eyes on me but to merge into the background. In fact the idea of being the centre of attention and subject to sharp-eyed scrutiny is quite alarming. Who knows what personal foibles will be eagerly pounced on?

I shudder at the thought of being a role model or a trend-setter. What, me with all my myriad hang-ups and fixations and shortcomings? No, no, don't copy me, copy someone who's worth copying - someone with visible talent and insight and imagination. My own talents consist of getting by, keeping out of trouble and feathering my own nest. Hardly a valuable gift to humanity.

If I draw attention at all, it's probably for all the wrong reasons. I've just knocked over a bottle of wine or said something stunningly rude or a chair has collapsed under me. It's highly unlikely I've drawn attention for my dazzlingly perceptive take on South American literary trends or melting Arctic glaciers. My opinions are about as significant as bus-shelter graffiti.

I don't mind if I drop dead having been of no importance to anyone except my small circle of loved ones. The obituary columns will just have to do without me.

My humble apologies

I'm good at apolog-ising. I'll happily apologise for anything if it oils the wheels of a relation-ship. Be it a misunder-standing, an unintended insult, an error of fact, or an unpopular opinion, I don't mind humbling myself and admitting that maybe I got it wrong. What's the big deal about that?

But there are so many people who'll do anything rather than apologise. Apologies are apparently a huge humiliation, a huge blow to their ego, something they have to avoid at all costs.

They'll deny doing anything wrong, or find some absurd excuse or justification, or say they were only joking, or say you're over-sensitive. Anything rather than drop their pose of infallibility and admit they're only human and sometimes they drop a clanger.

My father hated apologising. No matter how obviously wrong he was about something, he would never back down. He had to be right, his authority couldn't be challenged, he couldn't bear it that I might actually know more about something than him.

I can recall several workmates who were much the same. Apologising was out of the question. It was always someone else who was wrong, not them. Any attempt to extract an apology was met with anger and incredulity.

The one thing hospital patients always ask for when they've had shoddy treatment of some kind is an apology. "I just want them to admit they got it wrong and they have to do better" they'll say. And the one thing the hospital invariably won't do is apologise. They'll prevaricate and obfuscate and do anything to avoid simply saying "We're really sorry, we made a mess of this and it's not good enough."

And while I'm at it, I sincerely apologise for all those nonsensical, long-winded, infantile, pedantic blog posts I've churned out over the last seven years. If there's anything I can do to make amends, just say the word. You've no idea how ashamed and stupid and careless I feel. What a total dufus I've been. What a total toss-bucket. I promise to do much much better in the future.

Pretentious, moi?

Am I pretent-ious? Do I try to impress people with all sorts of phoney tricks and gambits? Do I think the real me is too dull and too ordinary to interest people?

Sometimes I decide, yes, I'm totally pretentious, I'm trying to wow everyone with my superior education or my clever arguments or my worldliness or my political right-on-ness. I want them to think I'm a bit special, a bit remarkable, someone they'll remember when they've forgotten a hundred other people.

Then I think, no, that's utter crap, I'm not the slightest bit pretentious, I know my education was mediocre and most of my clever arguments are bullshit and I'm about as worldly as a dormouse and politically right-on as the weather forecast.

I know perfectly well I'm probably as dull and ordinary as the next person and there's no point in pretending otherwise. I might think I'm special but that's just my inflated opinion of all the personal clichés and platitudes that I fondle and caress in the privacy of my own ego.

At the end of the day, pretending to be more sophisticated than I am isn't going to fool anyone. People aren't that stupid, they can tell the difference between meaningless bollocks and emotional and psychological truth. They want to see the real me, however dull and ordinary and messy, they don't want some showy performance.

So no, I don't think I'm pretentious, but I may just want to think that, I may just want to convince myself I'm a regular guy with no airs and graces. Other people may be laughing like drains, ready to point out all my pompous pronouncements and vacuous statements and puncture my balloon of self-satisfaction.

Please do. Honest opinions are always welcome. You're not likely to dent my ego, which is about the size of a garden pea and has probably already slipped down the back of the sofa. Go on, tell me the truth. Pretentious, moi?