What is Pride?

Why is Pride considered to be the deadliest of the seven deadly sins? When is an individual's pride too much? If we lack pride, does that mean we lack confidence? These questions all come to mind when contemplating the essence of Pride.

We can immediately turn to the biblical representation of Pride, as one of the Seven Deadly Sins. Pride is categorized as a sin of the intellect, and often considered in religious teachings to be the original, or deadliest of sins. The Latin term for Pride is Superbia, meaning basically to have excessive or unreasonable pride. It is considered to be so deadly because, many of the sins can stem from pride. It is Lucifer who inhabits the demonic representation most often associated to Pride, and we all know that he is the original bad boy.

Lucifer thought himself cleverer than God, thus having an overwhelming excess of pride. As the story goes; when Lucifer became a fallen angel from Heaven, he based his kingdom of hell upon the pillar of pride. Perhaps that is an extension to what religions speak of as the Original Sin. That Lucifer coerced Eve in the Garden of Eden to taste the fruits of pride, to realize that she and Adam may devise their own knowledge separate from God.

Outside of a literal biblical interpretation, I personally take this moral lesson as one of humility. Obviously, it is humility that is the opposite of pride, but in the context of the Garden of Eden, it is perhaps humility in the face of the universe, or God if you will. That we, as humans, will suffer great discomfort should we pride ourselves in knowing the universe better than is humanly possible.

There is much truth to be discovered in this notion of humility in the presence of the universe. Just take for example that brilliant minds like Socrates, Isaac Newton, Benjamin Franklin, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln, Henry David Thoreau, Isaac Asimov, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking notably sat in awe of the universe. In their time, these minds comprehended more about existence and the universe than many of us will ever dream of grasping, yet they were humbled by life's magnitude and beauty.

The biblical interpretation of Pride shares a close cousin when considering the myths of Ancient Greece. A similar tale to Lucifer is the Greek Myth of Sisyphus. By stealing a throne and devising several devious plans, Sisyphus prided himself a clever man. So much so that he claimed to outwit Zeus, the almighty God figure of the ancients. It was with tremendous hubris that Sisyphus claimed this; hubris being a nice sounding synonym for the deadly ego building that pride cements.

Zeus, almighty lightening bolt tosser that he was, punished Sisyphus with the forced labor of rolling a rock up a hill, only to have it fall to the bottom over and over. With Lucifer the fallen, and Sisyphus forced to chase the fall, we see that Pride takes us to the peaks of ego, only to tumble back into the pits of reality.

It is interesting to consider how the word "Pride" has taken new forms. To take Pride in one's work, or to be proud of our children for instance, don't have the same hell-bound connotation. Black Pride, Asian Pride, Gay Pride, National Pride or School Pride, all holster a positive, esteem building sense of belonging. Though, one thing remains the same, no one likes a proud jerk-off who thinks he's better than the rest of the universe. As if one's arrangement of puny molecular being here on Earth can outshine the most brilliant star in the universe. Anyone who thinks that way will soon find himself reining a throne in his own personal hell, foolishly pushing that same damn rock against the laws of gravity.

In the end, the greatest lesson of pride is to stay in awe of the universe around you, no matter how tremendous your accomplishments may be...but who am I to preach, take it from the experts:

"Humility is the solid foundation of all virtues." - Confucius

"If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants" - Isaac Newton

"To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness." - Benjamin Franklin

"What kills a skunk is the publicity is gives itself." - Abraham Lincoln

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." - Gandhi

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." - Einstein

"If I only had a little humility, I'd be perfect." - Ted Turner