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Thinking of Yourself, Less

Time to plant.

I remember when humility was a virtue, a quality that most people felt was praiseworthy and useful. We had no trouble distinguishing it from humiliation, which was a shameful condition visited upon us by others. Oh, we liked it when the braggart was forced to “eat humble pie” (sometimes, even, when it was us who had to eat that bitter confection), but mainly we felt that baking that pie and nibbling at it regularly was not just good medicine but often a sweet and sustaining way to eat.

Here’s today’s question: does a humble writer try to increase his page views by shamelessly flogging his ‘brand’? (“Duh, of course!”) Or to put it another, less JH.comAllTheTimeHeyEnoughAboutMeWhatDoYOUThinkOfMyWebsite?- centric way, how can we use the incredible connectivity and expressive potential of social media without becoming insufferably dull and incurably self-absorbed? I don’t know, and mainly err on the side of Luddism and avoidance.

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C.S. Lewis (on humility)

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.

Clive Staples Lewis (1898-1963) was most famously the spinner of the Narnia tales. He was also a noted Cambridge and Oxford scholar/professor, J.R.R. Tolkien‘s buddy, and one of Christianity’s most noted modern apologists (which does not mean he was sorry for Christians). I was tickled to learn that he was known as ‘Jack’ to friends and family, as Tolkien was called ‘Gandalf’ by intimates. (Kidding about Tolkien.) I was pleased to stumble on this powerhouse quote* – in a Steve Rushin column in Sports Illustrated, not to my surprise – and to be reminded of this statement about the misapplication of humility, made by G.K. Chesterton.

* Perils of quotation and the Internet: not likely through any fault of his, the American super-pastor Rick Warren is given credit for this saying on several sites.