The View From My Bicycle (COLUMN)

Our arrogance is astounding. No, it really is. Over the weekend I had someone call me who I prepared a script for and for whom I've done a huge amount of backroom work. This person had seen the movie Reservoir Dogs, and decided she really liked the whole gangster motif. And since she had been passing around a Three Chapter script I'd prepared, she suddenly came upon THE EPIPHANY OF EPIPHANIES. Why not put a gangster into the story? Yes - just sticky tape him in, kind've like cutting out a Burger King logo and bosticking it somewhere into a KFC ad. Why not? I mean, if you like Burger King, why the hell not? I mean, BINGO ANOTHER BRIGHT IDEA - food is food and it's still food right? Damn I'm smart!

Uh............................Well, there is a reason why the hell not. One is chicken, original recipe, and the other is...well, not. In this case she took Quentin Tarantino and thought she'd just squish it into Nick van der Leek's story. Bugger Taratino and fuck van der leek. When I explained to her that you have to come up with an original concept, that it has to work, she was like - what is that? I know this works. I've thought about it over a latte.
Hmm, well, try writing it down.

She told me she was convinced her idea (which was really an idea of an idea and taking my idea and fuse-fucking it to a movie she'd watched the previous evening) would work. I said if she was so confident she really didn't need me - a hack - hell, she should write the script and whilst at it, prepare her acceptance speech at the Oscars a la Good Will Hunting. You know what, I might just go and do that.

This arrogance naturally caught me by surprise because despite the pretty face I knew I was dealing with a physically strong specimen. I imagined this meant she also had some degree of mental resilience, something a court of law would define, perhaps, as being of sound mind.

And that really is the crux of the matter. Earlier I posted an article, a clip really, about Serial Killers and politicians sharing some traits. So it is scarily appropriate to remember this and overlap to the context quoted above:

Interpersonal traits include glibness, superficial charm, a grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, and the manipulation of others. The affective traits include a lack of remorse and/or guilt, shallow affect, a lack of empathy, and failure to accept responsibility. The lifestyle behaviors include stimulation-seeking behavior, impulsivity, irresponsibility, parasitic orientation, and a lack of realistic life goals.

So you have this individual which seemed, initially, to be worthy of the work of attention. Because she is a hard worker. Well, a hard swimmer. And so you invest in this person, and then they take something which months earlier they sniffed at, and they're really passing it off as their own. And of course it isn't, they've barely even sniffed at it themselves. All it is is something real to pass around. Which is why it's possible to be so glib about it. What's glib, you ask?

Showing little thought, preparation, or concern, marked by ease and fluency of speech or writing that often suggests or stems from insincerity, superficiality, or deceitfulness. CHECK

The superficial charm was there, in fact she admitted as much when we discussed the baser instincts of a character fashioned around her character. And as you would expect, absolutely no shame. No shame in this level of abject shallowness, in this natural instinct at manipulation, and when I told her what I thought of her, just a cool response. No empathy, no sense of responsibility. No recollection that personal investments were made that she won't get anywhere else for free. And now, of course, even if she came crawling back, she certainly wouldn't get anything else from me at no charge.

That's the price of arrogance. Arrogance is a lack of realism about oneself and the world. I remember for a long long time I was incredibly shy. I wouldn't say lacking in confidence, although in some respects it was perhaps that. As a human being though, I didn't lack confidence. But I was certainly shy around others. So was Ryk Neethling. That shyness speaks of a high level of respect for the complexity of the world, and the difficulty of navigating through the emotional labyrinths that are filled with crevasses and impasses thatare impossible to predict. Just ask your friendly neighyborhood Terminator. Humility - the opposite of arrogance - is an important quality for an achiever, because it accepts that life is going to be hard, and it starts organising the discipline, physical, mental and spiritual, that needs to be brought to the table.

The view from my bicycle is of a world that is incredibly shallow. And it's going to cost us. Well, it already has. It's cost those who involved themselves in the recent Ponzi schemers (Madoff and Tannenbaum. These record swindles are only possible in a world where greedy arrogance is at all time highs).

At the inaugural Confederations Cup early this evening South Africans got caught up in the hype that somehow their soccer team was...could be...yes...exceptional winners, even though they have yet to prove it. And once more we saw a shaky, dismal performance. The coach is also somewhat to blame. He reiterated afterwards about how good the players were. That psychology, of calling things the way we want them to appear, rather than the way they are, fosters mediocrity and sets one up not only for disappointment, but for absolute failure.

There is a saying. A cat that enters a monastery is still a cat. The message from this simple statement is not just that an environment informs us of a context, because, see, where you are still doesn't change the reality of who you are. And this saying suggests something else that's important: remembering who the fuck you are. Because in the monastery or out of it, you're still a god damned hypocrite.