"No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect."
George Bernard Shaw
Friday, February 19, 2010
Winning Self-Respect
"No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing, and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect."
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The more we respect ourselfes, the more we respect others aswell.
ReplyDeleteCum hoc non est propter hoc. At least this relation between well doing and self-respect doesn´t concern artists. Actually it isn´t a very charming cheer-up because in those moments of arising self-doubt it tells the artist, that his work is rubbish.
ReplyDelete@Tanja and @cs
ReplyDeleteI agree partly with both of you.
Where is the line of demarcation between selfishness and sane self-respect, between rubbish and sense (or great rubbish and greatness)? No inerrable definition is possible. The gift and will to see this line is one of the preconditions of good art, but sighting this line one enters the imponderable.
What is the difference between Dante speaking with dead people, pretending even to listen to the words of Virgil - words which Dante puts into Virgils mouth - and a selfish, egocentric big Narcissus?
Dante had after all more respect for reality and truth than for himself, is the answer. But what is truth? I know no answer, I know only that we have to love truth more than we love our selves.
But Tanja is right. Only if we love and respect ourselves, we can love and respect the others as well. Jesus Christ has reduced the 10 commandments to 2 commandments: firstly love God (truth) and secondly (at least try to) love your (farest) Next (as a potential bearer of truth).