Portrait in Linen

Tonight’s reading of Karate-Dō by Gichin Funakoshi was an anecdote entitled, “The Danger of Pride.” Funakoshi tells of an incident that took place when he was in his early thirties.

One day, while traveling a long, deserted road to his home in Shuri, Funakoshi passed a group of young men holding a hand wrestling competition. He didn’t interrupt the match, but observed from a distance.

After some time, the men took notice of Funakoshi and invited him to join. Funakoshi declined–”Please excuse me, but I must go now”–and he turned to leave, but the group dragged him to the competition.

Funakoshi easily won the match with the first man. And the second. And the third, fourth and fifth. The two remaining men were much older and stronger, and it was obvious to Funakoshi that they might present some challenge.

He agreed to wrestle the first older man, and he won that match, too. But instead of staying to wrestle with the oldest and strongest man of the group, Funakoshi excused himself to resume his journey.

As expected, the group of men followed and eventually attacked him in the middle of the road. Funakoshi defended himself against all seven men, warding off every blow aimed at him, and when it became clear to the group that they wouldn’t be able to beat him, they gave up. “Who is this guy? He seems to know karate.”

The attack ceased, and Funakoshi again made his way toward his destination. He writes…

By the time I reached Shuri, I was filled with remorse. Why had I entered that hand-wrestling competition? Was it, I asked myself, mere curiosity? But the real answer came to my mind: it was overconfidence in my strength. It was, in a word, pride. It was a violation of the spirit of Karate-dō, and I felt ashamed. Even as I tell the story now, these many years later, I still feel deeply ashamed.

—

I find this story so remarkable, because–at first–I thought to myself, “Well, this story doesn’t say anything about the danger of pride. He didn’t ask to enter the competition. He never claimed he could beat everyone. He didn’t boast about winning. Where was his pride? It wasn’t evident to anyone else. Why is it an issue?”

By the time I finished the last paragraph, I understood. Funakoshi was less ashamed of his pride than he was of his false humility.

—

Several years ago, someone mentioned to me the subject of “false humility.” At the time, in my immature, self-absorbed bubble of naivety, I didn’t pick up on the fact the phrase “false humility” was being wielded in reference to me.

Since I reached the age of majority, I thought I’d matured enough, had become wise enough to the world, was confident enough in my own introspection that I would’ve been able to spot any character flaws I might have, so not only did I entirely miss the implication, I was later offended anyone would dare point out a weakness of mine before I came to recognize it myself.

Hindsight is 20/20.

I was falsely humble. And I still am. Often.

I trace the development of that glaring imperfection to childhood. No matter what potential I may have had, I was placed on a pedestal from Day One. The bar was set–High, High. Dad just knew I could do it, so I did. Again and again. So not only did I prove myself, I proved myself in his reflection, because he was on a pedestal. His bar was set High, High, too, and he did it, again and again.

Is that to say I never struggled to achieve? Course not. I think I may have become so accustomed to the pressure to perform, I took it in stride, and eventually, it came to be a natural, perpetual state. Performance. Competition. Achievement. To maintain the precedence.

One can be completely unconscious of her expectation to win. I know this, because every time I was in the spotlight or on the carpet, I was racked with anxiety, a tangle of nerves. I performed under a thousand guns, half of them Dad’s, half of them mine. Recalling it now, it felt like Do-or-Die. Like my very life depended on my performance.

But in the aftermath, waiting for the verdict, the anxiety slowly gave way to a quiet confidence. If I’d done well, I knew I’d done well, and I expected to come out–if not on top–at least in the top tier. And when it happened that way, what else could be a more effective reinforcement of “quiet confidence”?

That cycle of anticipation, expectation, performance, and reward churned and churned and eventually bled over into every other aspect of life: academics, art, friends, love interests, self-image, vocational aspirations, leisure pursuits.

And here we are, so many decades later. The veil has been lifted. I’m no longer blissfully ignorant of my tendency to overconfidence. The kicker is…I am usually very adept at keeping it stuffed so far down inside, that–in the war between what I know to be right and good, and what I know to be dark and deplorable–the conscientious effort to suppress my pride gives way to a gross overcompensation of self-abasement, shame, self-defeat, and fear. Two extremes; neither is healthy nor righteous.

“Don’t compete with anyone else. Don’t compete with yourself. Just train, just train…,” I was told.

I don’t think anything else at all about my training is so breakingly difficult as the challenge to extract myself from this infernal “ladder mentality.” I don’t want to be concerned about anyone else. I don’t want to be concerned about me, where I weigh in, how I weigh in, if I weigh in. If I could have one granted desire in life, if would be pure contentment with who I am and what I produce–As Is. No fear of being too much, no fear of being too little. Just being, and being allowed to fail or achieve, or both, and still find myself in some genuine favor with the world (even if it’s a very small world; I don’t ask for much).

There are hundreds and hundreds of memories of mine, just like Funakoshi’s, that I look back on with the most repulsively bitter remorse. Life makes no omissions. Blame youth. Blame your parents. Blame your human flesh. But it all boils down to awareness. Not only is there now awareness, but also confession. I’m aware. I confess. I blame no one but me.

I can only hope it doesn’t take a premier instance of humiliation to crush forever my pride and overconfidence. I can only hope I’m never called out at the height of my self-scorn and shamed into a brand-new, twisted false pride. What’s left but paralysis? Frozen in a dusty, psychological mine field?

Take a deep breath. Forget Dad for a while. Forget me. Just train.