Pride

I have a problem with most forms of pride. I’m a big ol’ flaming liberal, so the first form I’ll mention is nationalism. To me, it makes no sense to have pride in the country you happened to be born in. You had no control over that. If you’d have been born in Saudi Arabia would you wistfully stare at maps of the U.S, wishing you’d been born there instead? No. You’d be proud of being born in an Islamic theocracy, because you’re a fucking idiot.

The second form of pride, and the one that inspired this post, is body pride. You know, being proud of your body. Not conforming to the mainstream beauty standard. If you body is merely the result of the genetics you were born with, then there’s no more reason for you to be proud of it than there is for you to be proud of the country you were born in.

Now, nationalism makes sense if you were one of the people who made your country great. Body pride makes sense if you’re a body builder or cyborg. And the cyborg pride only makes sense if you did that on purpose, too. Robocop has no reason to be proud of his cyborg body. The engineers at OCP do.

Think about this: if you were standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon, marvelling at its majesty, and I came up behind you and said, “I’m so proud of this.” Wouldn’t you think I was an idiot?

Don’t be an idiot. Be proud of the things you make or do, not of the things that were given to you by circumstance.


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