Being good is highly underrated.
I have often noticed that people who proclaim their brilliance often come a cropper. Been there, done that. Often times the best thing in the world is to face an adversary who underestimates you and overestimates himself.
In matters of being good, the main thing is not to take pride in being good.
It is by pride that Lucifer fell, and I have always feared that I am very susceptible to such pride. A sense of humor about vanity helps.
“Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is specially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, ‘By jove! I’m being humble!’, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages a you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you may awake his sense of humour and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
“in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed“
-oh how that proud spirit hates to be laughed at and how that evil spirit loses its grip… when We stay in His Grace (and Humor).
But by the envy of the devil, death came into the world: And they follow him that are of his side. Wisdom 2:24-25
And nowadays, having letters after your name have become a self congratulatory confirmation of how smart the person supposedly is. Between DEI and grade inflation where everyone is given a degree as a participation trophy even if they can’t read or critically think to any degree, this has become a cruel joke. My wife, who never graduated from college because she became a full-time mom and grandmom, used to say the more degrees someone had, the dumber they became. I tried not to take that personally. She used to say “just use common sense”, something that’s not so common anymore. And to prove Don’s point about being good being underrated, when I was praying about whether or not to ask my wife to marry me the one thing I consistently heard was that she was good. That proved to be true for 47 years.
The phrase “evil genius” exists for a reason.
Instead of “Intelligence”, I think the Luciferian temptation can come from education. Some very stupid people receive
indoctrinationan education from schools of higher learning and develop the arrogance Dr. Peterson talks about here. Even the left’s preferred social media sources constantly tell them how superior to others they are. The woke don’t read philippians chapter 2 very often.Quite right. History records few stupid tyrants though many have poor judgement.
There is a women half my age or less at Neutrons ‘R Us who is far smarter than I will ever be, but she puts the itch at the end of the letter “b.” She came as an intern more than a decade ago and is now a senior manager of a very important department (this is what happens in liberal progressive corporations, but that’s changing). She always takes the least conservative road when it comes to regulatory compliance and nuclear safety, and even a senior leader in my chain of command has described her as toxic (but all the other leaders love her because she’s good with words, she’s smart, and she’s pretty; besides, DEI rules the day). Of course the people she manages absorb her attitude, and it produces so much organizational dysfunction. I cannot describe any more details here except to say this: regardless that she is more intelligent by far than I am, I was doing calculations with a sliderule on core nuclear fuel burnup and xenon fission product neutron poison effects aboard the old nuclear submarine decades before she was even a gleam in her father’s eye, and certainly long before any fancy analytical software existed for those calculations nowadays, so I damn well don’t want to hear about how smart someone is because when it comes to nuclear safety, thinking you’re smarter than everyone else can be a disaster. I’d rather be a dumb technician with a sliderule and a tweaker than a smarty pants scientist with sophisticated software.
Mea sententia peculiaris sicut civis liber.
My personal opinion as a free citizen.
” I’d rather be a dumb technician with a sliderule and a tweaker than a smarty pants scientist with sophisticated software.”
Any day of the week.. so many times I’ve had a tech come and tell me of an issue or what should be done. I listen. Foolish not too. Always have full tech respect, they know what’s really going on even if they do not understand the theory.
Being intelligent can be a curse. My dad considered my aptitute tests in school to think I was a genius. I never liked school and struggled terribly in college.
I never was promoted to anything but staff in my so called career. I wanted to be an electrician. I would have made better money and I would not be told I was being kicked out of my job…
Being good is often punished.
Forgive me for hijacking this thread. I’ve posted here for years and told everyone about my troubles with my wife, my oldest son, etc. My mom died three months ago. I was the victim of a hit and run accident almost three months ago. Today I was informed that as of December 11 I will no longer be employed.
My finances are not where they should be for retirement.
Today I watched a video from Fr. Mark Goring, where he told his viewers to be grateful for the tribulations we go through. I am having a hard time with that.
Penguins Fan:
Never found my niche job either. Was also sold a lot of tripe about how being good gets you the good / easy life. It really hasn’t.
All the promises of life have fallen short, and being bad was often more fun (or at least it often seems so in my memory – of course, that’s probably a deception)
Still, I’m putting all my hope in Christ. I’ve got very little hope for happy endings here, so I’ve got to trust in Him who is good itself. I decide anew to trust Him to bring me to Himself- and pray I don’t disqualify myself in the meantime!!
PG and Bruised.
He will fill the Hungry with good things.I will pray The Magnificat daily for you asking Him to do it soon.