-There’s what you say

-There’s whether it’s true or not

-There’s whether other’s find it true or not

-The definition of arrogance is being very wrong when you say you’re very right

-Therefore if others think you’re very wrong, and you are very confident that you’re right (and reveal it) — you are dubbed arrogant

 

Are you arrogant?

It depends if you are actually very wrong, or not.

Will you be called arrogant?

OF COURSE you will.

If you’re very right — you’ll still be called arrogant by those who think you’re very wrong.

And if you’re very wrong — you’ll be deservedly called arrogant by those who know you’re very wrong.

 

You will be called arrogant EITHER WAY.

But you can only truly be arrogant if you’re truly wrong — and thinking you’re very right

Arrogance means “exaggerated sense of one’s abilities”.

When you’re uncertain — say you’re uncertain. That’s epistemically humble = humble.

But when you say you’re certain and you’re proven wrong — this means your faith in your understanding was exaggerated. Which means you were arrogant.

 

But EITHER WAY you will be called arrogant.

Sometimes justly, sometimes unjustly.

And this is a problem.

Not so much what others think of you — but what YOU think of you.

 

If you convince yourself that you are indeed arrogant — you will temper your confidence.

If you were arrogant — that’s a good thing.

If you weren’t — now you’re too timid.

When you’re too timid — you do less. Therefore you stymie your growth, stymie your learning.

 

The other side of the coin — in which you convince yourself that you are NOT arrogant — is even worse.

If you weren’t arrogant — then that’s a good thing.

But if you were arrogant — in now convincing yourself that you aren’t truly arrogant — you become trice as deluded.

Previously you were only delusionally confident in knowing something.

Now you’re also delusionally confident that the feedback you’re getting is NOT invalidating your knowledge and ability.

This renders you effectively impossible to invalidate, therefore unfalsifiable, therefore not even wrong, therefore just plain crazy.

Of course reality can still humble you — but the problem is that you are possibly already passed listening to reality. If you weren’t — than you would have already cured your arrogance by now.

At this point the only hope for you is realizing the distortion of your own arrogance. And if you fail to admit it when you see it — you are doomed.

 

Therefore you must understand this about arrogance.

Only the falsely humble escapes the label of an arrogant — and he pays a steep price for it.

He downplays his truth — and in it destroys communication.

There is nothing great that he can build if he doesn’t even allow himself to speak of greatness, out of fear of being rejected and labelled arrogant.

The falsely humble escapes the label of arrogant — and the rest of us are labelled arrogant anyway.

The more you grow the MORE you shall be labelled arrogant. Because every step forward you make, every truth you discover — separates you further from the rest of the world, and it’s darkness. The world doesn’t know if you’re right. So when you say it’s right and they don’t agree — they dub you arrogant.

Finally — the truly arrogant — he eventually gets desensitised to the label of “arrogant”. And this is to his terrible detriment.

You must understand this so that you don’t fall into either of the traps: the falsely humble, or the adamantly arrogant.

And it’s easy to swing from one extreme to another.

Once you throw away the yoke of caring what others think of you — it becomes easy to shut one’s eyes and ears to their actually valid criticism. Likewise lifetime of hearing how arrogant you are is effective in creating false modesty as a coping strategy.

 

You must walk the middle path,

Which is to be the arrogant in the eyes of the world,

But understanding what arrogance truly means: which is the very plain and simple being OVERCONFIDENT in BEING RIGHT.

And this is understood only in ACTION. Anyone is IGNORANT but the REAL WORLD DOERS.

Therefore once you took action, once you put your own skin in the game, and SUFFERED for your outcomes, and SUFFERED for the truth, and had it HUMBLE you and had it empower you — NOW you’re ready to call the spade a fucking spade.

And now you’re ready to be dubbed ARROGANT — and think nothing of it,

But now you’re also ready to be dubbed arrogant — and KNOW when to listen to it,

You have a VERY accurate sense of what it means to be CERTAIN of something. You sense when you might be slightly too arrogant, and you sense when you are not arrogant at all — just plain confident.

It’s all substantiated by a lifetime of MAKING PREDICTIONS — putting your money where your mouth is — then reaping what you sow.

 

Conclusion is:

-First destroy your ignorance

-Destroy it in ACTION

-Once you acted — now you want to learn, and now you want to think

-Repeat action-reflection-learning cycle — and watch ignorance dispel

-The cycle never ends mind you. You can’t learn something once and forever be learned

-Watch your confidence (core or specific) extend

-Watch others call you arrogant

-Synthesise their insights with your insights

-Which means ignore vast majority of the noise coming from those that didn’t have the same experience as you did

-But when meaningful scepticism of the world matches what you yourself suspect to be a hole in your understanding — you are quick to move from labelling something CERTAIN to labelling something POSSIBLE

-This is how you manage to grow, without undue concern for the opinion of others slowing you down — but also without extreme delusion eventually sabotaging you completely

Make peace with what it takes and grow