Vanity, Envy and Competition - Part 1

“I have seen everything that is done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and a striving after wind.” 

This verse from Ecclesiastes, ostensibly written by King Solomon, is a pretty complete dismissal of mankind’s striving.  The fact that Solomon, who had achieved so much in his life, was so cynical about human effort, is pretty sobering.

Not long after I started college something focused my attention on the large role that vanity plays in our lives and I have been in equal parts fascinated and horrified by it ever since.

In writing this little piece of analysis, I am somewhat fearful of exposing myself as a terribly vain and insecure person, but I am fairly certain that I am not unusual in this regard, so I will take the risk.  After all, Solomon is pretty good company!

I had grown up in the heart of the 60’s and my high school years were a far cry from today’s cauldron of competition and egomania.  Few of my classmates worried about grades and we certainly didn’t talk about them. Even the dreaded SAT’s were fairly low key.  We were more worried about the Vietnam War than getting into college and we focused much of our energy and thoughts on the social changes around us.

Now of course no adolescence is complete without the ‘thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to’ during this period – the social hierarchy and posturing, the gain and loss of friends, the athletic competition and so on.  But I do believe my generation’s experience, particularly in the realm of competition and pressure, is a cakewalk in comparison with the gauntlet that today’s youth must run.

However, when I went off to Stanford (okay, already a pretentious remark – this is, after all, a piece about vanity!) in 1972 I soon encountered a much more obvious strain of vanity than I had experienced before.  And I say this believing strongly that the Stanford of my day cannot hold a candle to the super citadel of ego that Stanford is today (see my blog entry on Stepford University - http://www.rvgeiger.blogspot.com/2014/11/stepford-university.html - for more on that!).

My classmates were subtly (and occasionally, quite brazenly) probing one another for details on SAT scores, family wealth, travel experiences and a host of other scoring factors to determine the relative pecking order.  Even drug experiences and joint-rolling prowess could potentially establish one’s superiority or uniqueness in a group that was filled with super achievers.

This is not to say that we spent all of our time engaging in such nonsense.  But it happened often enough that it made an impression on me.  I found myself envying some of my fellow students their wealth or social position.  Some could speak foreign languages and I soon felt inadequate in this arena.  I was repulsed by the posturing whenever I encountered it, but I found that I was not above subtly bragging when the opportunity came my way. 

Yet the irony was that bragging and pretension did not produce a positive feeling in either the bragger or the reluctant recipient.  Why then, were we so apt to engage in it? What possible benefit were we deriving?  What horrible psychological problem was at the root of it all?

And thus began my investigation into the complex web of vanity, envy and competition that is both the curse and the driving force for much of human endeavor.  I am not quite vain enough to believe that I have anything unique or definitive to say on the subject, but I have done enough thinking in this area to pose some interesting questions for my readers to ponder.  More to come.