Consolation for the Poor

There are those in life who strut like peacocks.

They preen and priss and love showing off their brightly hued plumage -- Oh, yes, my ravishing form -- Oh, thank you, my shining intellect -- Indeed, my superior breeding.


They look down their noses at the hoi polloi and cluck their tongues in condescension, "Oh, thank God you didn't make me like them."

I don't know what it's like to be one of these "superior" beings, because really, pride is not about objective accoutrements, but more about subjective positioning. And I guess I'm just missing the "I'm #1" gene. If not by nature, then certainly by nurture it was beat out of me by the constant criticism and absent praise of exacting parents.

And though it is probably due more to sour grapes than sweet consolation, I say to those peacocks, real or imagined, "I wouldn't want to be you. Not for a million bucks. All you wealthy, and beautiful, and confidant, and strong -- you are to be most pitied. For you can't help but to take pride in what you are. That's your identity and that is the foundation of your esteem. It is the flaw in every man to idolize that which he thinks makes him superior."

"But we, wretched of the earth, we poor, we friendless, we beggers are free from the inimical bonds of an inevitable false master. We have a chance to find true consolation. But there is no consolation for the wicked."