“Everyone is beautiful. Their grubbiness, their dirt and grime. Their humanity and their fear. They ongoing guilt and bravery is inspiring and admirable. I see their faults and perfect flaws. They are so lovely. Those exact flaws use their imaginary hands to mold every nick and cut, every drop of blood and every scar on the person they adorn. Without these beautiful imperfections we would all be perfect, and what fun is that? Who wants to be truly untouched. Why would you look at a painting without paint? Why would you listen to music without sound? Why would you live without life.”
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Ashton Hill (via quote-book) (via gypsyriot). Such quotes are endlessly hilarious to me. This claims to be a quote about “everyone.” It isn’t (not even if we grant an artificially limited set of “humanity”). This represents itself as a catharsis, a catalyst for enhanced understanding and appreciation. It isn’t. This quote is the cri de ceour of the most annoying kind of narcissist — an insecure one, who feels compelled to justify to himself over and over that he is an object with value by asserting that he is a member of a set of inherently valuable objects. “Never mind trying to become ‘valuable’ — I already am! And you are too, which means that you have something in common with me and I can feel less alone.” Of course, even this simple level of self-awareness goes unachieved. I imagine that such a person will have this exact same so-called “revelation” a multitude of times throughout the course of his life, because he is clearly less than proficient at productively evaluating his words and the actual reasons why he is saying them at all. Instead of becoming more thoughtful, or artful, or graceful, or insightful, he’s going to be stuck — in a cycle of self-love and self-hatred that crowds out any possibility of genuine transformation and betterment. It is a battle with no winner, not even emotionally. And, for the record, the analogy at the end is both sophomorically conceived and just plain wrong. (via hereblog)
1. Yes, the above quotation (noun) is overindulgent and somewhat silly
2. But, beginning your critique with sarcastic (ontological?) quips about ‘humanity’ and ‘sets’ does you no good when your main points are about narcissism and the results of poor self-understanding.
3. You confuse bad writing with bad thinking. A little charity (of the philosophical sort) would easily allow for the author’s point to come through - that we are shaped by our failures in important ways - without being muddled and torn by some ‘endless hilarity’ or wild guesses about cycles of self-love and hate. Sure, it’s a little ‘identity 101’, but it doesn’t need to be glossed over or hated on either.
4. Pick better fights.
