The hideous scourge of arrogance

And its delicious opposite: humility

“Do you know who I am?”  Those were the words uttered by a semi-retired colleague of mine to a hapless hotel employee in Mumbai, India.  He had once been a big shot in one of the most well-known strategy consulting firms in the world.  He was unhappy, spluttering, outraged, about something to do with his room.  I think.

The young Indian man behind the corner, clean-faced, soft-spoken, only seemed non-plussed.  

As my colleague raged my own reaction was that he was a ‘nobody’.  It is so much easier to learn about arrogance when you can see it in others.  Rather than disliking the person for it, I wanted to see it inside myself, to see what I had of it.

I don’t think I am arrogant.  I’ve spent too long observing it and trying to squelch it to feel that it is an ailment of mine.  My manner, however, has often led people to believe I was.  It is amazing how reticence, silence, not talking, speaking up, can at times be interpreted as being ‘above it all’.  Aloof.

I was certainly a ‘cold fish’ for much of my life.  Not because I was actually cold, but because giving off that aspect was a by-product of coping mechanisms.  As a naturally talkative and exuberant person, I found myself running aground on people when my exuberance or bubbles were seen out of place.  Being told off, feeling that I am out of kilter, feeling that there is something wrong with me, feeling that I have failed someone on a personal level hits me hard.  I don’t mean to be relative, but I do think it hits me harder than it does the average person.

It is said to be a by-product of ADD, that we are hyper-sensitive.  It is said of people with ADD that this hypersensitivity is often buried under layers of protection.  Words like being aloof, distant, cold, spring to mind.  ADD people are also at times tone deaf.

I certainly know that I put a foot wrong often.  I hurt or upset or offend without intending to.  Without conscious effort.  At times, when it is pointed out, I cannot see it, no matter how hard I try.  But what I do feel is pain from it.  The pain is that I have disappointed, let someone down.  I don’t know why it hurts so much, especially since you would think that it is the person who you let down that was hurt most.  But not so.  At least for me.

Thinking back to my colleague in India, he was lamenting for his lost position.  We often mistake ourselves for the chair we sit in.  I don’t remember when or how I learned this lesson, perhaps the first time I got fired as a CEO.  You get all of these flattering phone calls, people saying nice things to you, giving you gifts, wanting to be with you.  Or at least pretending to.  Most people are seduced by this.  It is the rare bird who is not.

My domme calls it ‘letting the mask devour the face’.  I think this is a common trope in the world of pro-BDSM.  Indeed, many practicing dommes actively cultivate this, investing in themselves and their position the kind of airs that are associated with an Empress.  We call paying for time “tribute”…gift lists can be lavish…and certainly the dynamic of power-exchange or the domination-humiliation dynamic feeds into this.  As with most things, there is beauty in this but there can also be darkness.  The difference is simply one of attitude.

If it is a game, and one that we do not take seriously, one that is about a role we inhabit, then it can be harmless fun.  But when either party is consumed and lost in the role, unhealthy outcomes are assured.  As a domme, letting the mask devour the face leads to arrogance.  It is a little different than being a CEO in the sense that the CEO is more easily dismissed, and in truth, the CEO is a servant, both to the Board, but also to their staff, and to owners, suppliers, community.  One might think that this could lead to humility.  The awesome weight of responsibility.  Rather than inflating our sense of importance, might serve to make us seek to be small.

When I think about my evolving style as a CEO…and I believe it is a role I shall never occupy again, such is the cost of being trans…it was to serve.  More specifically, to make myself small.  To make myself the least important person in the room.

As a leader I did a few things that helped me to succeed.  First, I encouraged the people around me to be the expert in their sphere, and to have the courage to say ‘no’ and to stand up for their convictions.  Second, I fired ass-kissers.  You have to know.  Ass-kissers are too busy clouding your judgement.  Third, I consciously worked myself out of a job.  Every job.  If I had a cockamamie idea, I would know it was no good because nobody would want to grab it and run with it.  The CEO should never have pet projects.  Fourth, making mistakes is okay.  Failing is fine.  Indecision and inaction are not fine.  Better to try and fail, then correct, than to not act.  People that didn’t align with this, get into the spirit of team, were soon out of a job.  Being “ruthless” in this sense is the kindest thing to do…rough on the individual, but an enormous relief for the community.

Are there parallels in this to the world of D/s and the domme/client relationship?  As a client, is it better to be human and equal and not lose your head?  As a domme, is it better to be aloof and distant from clients or plugged into their lives?  I know what I like in answer to both of these, but it may not be right, for one, the other, or in the grand scheme.

And what about being good at something?  Can we be proud of what we do, how we do, or our achievements without being deemed arrogant?  Is it possible to be a good slave?  To be an excellent slave?  What does that look like?  What about a domme?  What is excellence?

BDSM is changing for me.  Quite radically.  I will admit to finding it sexually thrilling before transition.  At some point in my early journey with D/s, it became much more than just sexual.  The word “religion” is too laden with baggage.  But ‘belief system’ does a good job.  And I don’t believe that the spiritual aspects of it have replaced or displaced the sexual aspects, but rather the two have merged.

Sex is heaven on earth.  It is a tool through which we connect with others.  Through sex we become ‘beside ourselves’.  This is its purpose.  To let go of self, of ego, and to connect in union with someone else, or several someone elses doing the same.

BDSM is not about getting off.  It is about personal growth.  Getting off can be a part of that, indeed, it might be its prime motivation.  Change can only happen when the self wishes it.  There is no force more powerful than sexual attraction.  The will can bend the self to conform.

So, if you know yourself, and you know what you value, and where you are going, then why not use that knowledge along with your sexuality to drive powerful self-change?  I am a slave.  But I am not a slave to anyone.  I am first a slave to myself.  I am also a domme to myself.  This way I can take care of my needs, both as a domme and as a slave, before I turn to someone else.  Can refine them, articulate them, know what I really want or need.

And yes, there is an exchange.  If the equity I bring is service, then the equity she brings is not just to receive it, but rather to direct and shape it, first so that it brings value, meets her needs, but second, helps me to grow so that I can do more, be more, give more.  To myself, to her, and to everyone around me.

That is a very tall order.

In the meantime, I was with a group of friends recently.  The one among those present who was most “entitled” to being arrogant, or proud of their achievements, was still the most humble among us, the most curious about the rest of us, the most kind.  They are rich.  What came first?  Does being rich make you very careful about how you behave lest you provoke anger or resentment in those around you?  Or does behaving in a way that makes everyone want to give to you, support you, help you make you become rich?  In other words, what is true wealth?  Certainly not money.

This person could fly in a private plane, seal themselves off from the world, take on airs…but instead dresses modestly, is a voracious reader and renaissance human, and takes public transport.  Does extreme wealth beget confidence that can only come from the certainty that it will endure?  That you need not be afraid?  Perhaps for some.  But for many others it is corrosive.  How can those two opposing influences co-exist?

Because they don’t matter.  Character has nothing to do with wealth and everything to do with the sense of self, our place in the world, and the ease and comfort with which we engage.  If you show and be love, then it doesn’t matter about dosh, people will want to be with you.  That is what wealth really is.  

In this sense, arrogance is a force which voices a need—I want you near me, but it expresses it as a repulsive force.  It undermines the very goal it seeks to achieve.  We are arrogant because we are insecure.  We become more insecure when we are arrogant as people respond to arrogance with distance.

That is what I saw in the face of the receptionist at the hotel in Mumbai.

What did I go and do?  I jumped into a taxi to the nearest fruit and vegetable market and bought 5kg of mangoes.  It was the Alphonso mango that drew me in, the world’s tastiest, and they were in peak season.  I brought the crates of them back to my hotel, took my clothes off, climbed into the shower with a knife, and proceeded to peel and eat every single one of them.  I then trimmed them down to the core seed, cut that open and extracted the true seed from inside its protective shell, and then packed them one by one in damp coir, the fuzzy hair from the coconut.

A few days later I unwrapped them on my ranch in a nameless hot country.  I placed them to sprout, and a few months later had several seedlings to plant out.  Now, 15 years later, I enjoy bumper crops of the most delicious mangoes and often think of their sweetness balanced against my colleague’s anger.  I never let on with my colleagues of my plant smuggling ways.

I know they already thought I was a little weird.  I am.  Maybe that’s why I don’t dare be arrogant.  If you live in glass houses…

Someone once remarked to me that being trans also means being careful.  In my life I wish to embody grace.  I am carefully examining my conduct and my life, especially when it is particularly hard, for example with my wife in divorce proceedings, and working through my own self-created adversity to emulate this quality.  A state of grace is like that sweet mango.  It is worth taking all kinds of outrageous and unexpected steps to get to it.  Who cares what the motive or the method is if the outcome is a state of Grace?

There are different kinds of sub-space.  My favourite, and one I know relatively little of, is what comes from a whipping.  As she whips me all rational thought leaves me, and I left only with instinct and my naked self.  Grace comes into the body at that time and puts me in a trance.  It is as if we can observe it and enjoy it together.

In this sense, the domme is a Priestess.  Yes, to be respected.  But the worship must be to what you achieve together.  Do not just administer to me.  Let us go someplace together.  A place which feeds and nourishes us both.

And what does one do when someone is arrogant in their interactions with you? This is hard. As a doormat, I struggle at times to assert my own needs, in fact, most of the time. My therapist has given me a book on breaking the cycle of being a people pleaser…Once I have read it, I shall review it. But in the meantime, when someone is rude to me or bullying or arrogant, I feel like walking away. It is an immediate trigger to my flight response. This comes from my personality pattern–how I deal with stress–more on those in the book review of the same name. And I have this feeling that I can remember having already as a child–“I’ll show you. I’ll just get better and better. And I will make sure that you don’t actually know me.” This is a rich mine of something which has good and bad, but requires more self-awareness. It is too easy to just write everyone off when they rub you wrong. How must they feel, also knowing that your relationship is so unstable.

How did my wife tame me? By showing me that I could run away from her and that she would still be there. That happened often in our early relationship…I would get overwhelmed, filled with despair about life, about “us”, about everything…and I learned over time that she could receive that and not give up. The temptation is to test people. That is a dangerous game.

Better still to leave more and more of our ego behind, and to step into grace. I am on the way. And the way does see me changing. It is an essential part of me, that I change, and never stay still, never stop exploring. It is a joyful part of life. But let’s all ditch the arrogance together.