No father of the Pride

A deadly warp of reality, and much more than that, pride is a true enemy of the soul.

Enemy is a strong word, and is, of course, slightly incorrect, because pride has no real self, from which to form an adversarial intention towards our soul, but that does not mean it cannot embody the qualities of an enemy or that it cannot produce effects such as an enemy would, and that it cannot function in the same way.

To function in the same way means that it points the other way (pun intended). Not towards where our heart and soul are, and want to go, but in the exact opposite direction. Way, and direction are not terms limited to geography, and preserve their meanings across at least several dimensions – that means their depth can be reached by our depth, our deep, true self.

Pride, however, cannot reach our depth. Pride is an artificial "floor" that would not allow anything to go deeper than its own reach, and its reach is very, very shallow. In life, we learn through experimentation, through play, through stumbling and falling, through trials, errors and adequate corrections – what we, in short, call experience – it is a very trivial thing, which pride turns into a very distorted thing.

As we go along experiencing life, pride stops us from admitting fault – we are never wrong – so we cannot (or "cannot afford to") make mistakes! That means we get one go at anything, and this is the perfect way for us to do it. One take, one go to perform one perfect expression of life in everything we attempt, old or new! What tremendous pressure!

We end up having to believe what we have done and the way we have done it is flawless (which just translates to "good enough, so no one would question it"), and, of course, we aren't all as insane as to truly believe we can do absolutely everything in this world – not even badly, let alone flawlessly – so pride will keep us away from attempting anything that would have us fail a few times before we begin to get the hang of it.

Pride stops us from improving in the things we can do and prevents us from learning new things. It is a blockade, a barrage, and a suffocation of our ability to play in the sand and enjoy the crumbling of sandcastles – the only castles a fatherless “king of everything” can live and rule in. Pride is a king not only without a castle, but also without an ancestor, without a parent or a sibling – it is a self-erected and self-supported hallucination of a journey’s end – it is the belief that the sandcastle is the only reason for sand to exist, and this king’s solely intended destination.

Pride has no authority, nothing in reality to back it up, and is, in fact, in a state of constant destruction, much like the eroding sandcastle. Its rule is a flimsy hallucination, so focused, so preoccupied with keeping every grain of sand in its place, that maintaining its existence becomes our full-time occupation, while it destroys our ability to live outside the sandcastle. Pride becomes an enemy to our boundless soul.

So let it be washed down by the tide and let us splash around in the vast open ocean of “imperfect”, fluid dreams of love and effortless play – the true source of experience and the true home of life.