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Introduction: As teens, we were so heavily serious about ourselves, so judgemental about other people’s choice of music. As an adult, I can lightly step to one side and laugh at myself. Today I wrote to a successful musician, Derek Sivers, after his podcast interview. (link)
Dear Derek,
Greetings from the Canadian prairie.
In a podcast, you said, “I believe it’s good to feel smug.” And you wondered whether for some reason other people don’t like “smug.” I suppose you were thinking of Paul Graham’s web essay where the “new, exciting Segway” failed after innocent “smug looking” riders would have insults hurled at them from passing cars.
Commentary
For an opinion on this, maybe I am not the one to ask, because I have some blind spots for human nature, including (“but not limited to,” interjects my panicky lawyer) smug. … Maybe I was behind the door when smug was passed out, or maybe having “extra-low self esteem” meant an extra-low chance of feeling jealous, and zero chance of being able to feel smug. Or a big chance of being “in denial” about it all…
Back in high school taking the Kipling poem, If, I was puzzled, went blank, at the advice for being a man: “…yet not look too good, nor talk too wise…” At the time, as I watched my peers being horribly jealous of each other, I simply assumed that once we grew up we would all have self esteem, and then none of us would have to hide our light under a bushel.
Years later, although I had never been an undergraduate myself, I nevertheless loved being around the campus ambiance—even if this always meant being “the least educated person in the room.” One day, there I was, seated at a desk at the university student newspaper, as a volunteer reporter, reading a press package: For Top Gun starring Tom Cruise. I was struck by something: An aviator told Cruise there are only three jobs worthy of a man: President of the United States, rock star and fighter pilot.
Well, I had a real boyhood: I did daydreams of being a fighter pilot, complete with sound effects. And I was a real citizen: I did thought-experiments on how I would act as the president. Without sounds. But rock star? On stage? No daydreams there.
So I went downstairs to the student radio station, found a loose cluster of music fans, told them my press quote, and asked: Why be a rock star? They each said they didn’t know. Finally, the only answer I got was from a guy I had lent bus money to, who was in a paid hobby band, who suddenly got energized, strummed an air guitar, and answered, “So you could make big money!”
And so matters stood, until next year when an honest student columnist wrote about her regret: She had always avoided the spotlight, “never been a contender,” never a rock star, only a groupie. She thought: Rock stars get attention. I thought: “Ohhh, now I get it.”
So you see, Derek, I am not the one to ask. To be sure, I enjoy lots of attention as a public speaker at my Toastmasters club, feeling the wind at my back, but while speaking I don’t have a big ego or a smug smile. No, I have a broad silly smile from serving the audience I love. As it happens, they find me very funny speaking on stage, but I would never do comedy for bar patrons and hecklers: I don’t love them.
I would want my pre-schooler to be smug, and my grandpa making crafts in his garage, and my little dog too. I think most people agree, and maybe those same people would only resent smugness in the population we call “the visible majority.”
Derek, I am writing to support you and others in being smug, especially since Bertrand Russell advised replacing natural envy with admiration. Works for me, means fewer frown lines.
Knowing Russell’s advice, I for one wouldn’t resent meeting Einstein at a party, or Marilyn Monroe who, according to social media, had a greater I.Q. than Albert did. This year, just before COVID-19 closed flights to the UK I felt just fine, no resentment, while having breakfast in London alone with a world-famous millionaire. (He paid)
Of course I try to know my own strength around specific individuals, such as the small shy lizard who hastens to let you know, as Robert Heinlein gently noted, that he is “a brontosaurus on his mother’s side.” And I’m always nice to worried international fashion models. But still, in everyday life, I am too stubborn to put on a fashionable hobble. I guess that’s why I have always believed, right from the 1970’s, in women’s liberation: The idea of holding myself back to protect other men’s fragile egos is just so offensive.
Derek, I am as puzzled as you are. Now here I am, happily admiring “everyone and their dog.” As in that new Jason Mraz refrain, “Look for the good.” (Youtube) Just don’t ask me why others hate smug.
Links:
Sir Michael Caine, a man who deserves to be smug, very humbly recites and reflects on the poem If, in the context of peace.
Segway essay,
Text of poem If,
Singer Jason Mraz Youtube
Regarding Bertrand Russell’s advice on envy: Goodreads comments on his 1930 self help book The Conquest of Happiness, highly recommended for time travellers who don’t mind “roughing it” to find lessons for today.
Sean Crawford
On the Canadian prairie
July 2020
