Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones:
Philip Comyns Carr
(1882)

"…the overwhelming stench of somebody chasing greatness."

Esteem must be one of the more curious human properties. Who even knows from whence it comes? We seem to more easily bestow it upon others we admire more readily than we ever consider bestowing it upon ourselves, yet bestowing it upon ourselves seems both necessary and essential. Those without self-Esteem seem to suffer a self-inflicted fate, as if they should have somehow obviously understood the absolute necessity of fulfilling this one fundamental obligation to themselves. Nobody knows better just how much their own shit stinks than the one mounting that ignoble throne each morning. What from one’s own perspective might ever lead them to hold themself in anything even approaching high Esteem?

I wager that ways exist to responsibly discover reasons to hold myself in considerable Esteem. In my experience, the best way I’ve found so far involves pursuing humility rather than greatness. It seems the higher and mightier’s self-Esteem tends to crumble under humbling experience, while those pursuing humility tend to find their Esteem patiently waiting for them there. Those pursuing greatness, for instance, often seem to have to forfeit their self-Esteem as the price of their pursuit, which requires some sort of deficit to motivate essential changes. This choice can complicate one’s ability to grant Esteem to others, leading to a sense of competition rather than companionable cooperation in the act. Esteem should not properly be a form of competition where one’s good opinion of themself prevents holding great opinions of others.

Esteem seems to come from within, even when bestowed by another, for even the externally bestowed requires acceptance to work its magic. If I, in false humility, refuse to acknowledge the Esteem you attempt to bestow upon me, I negate more than your precious gift. I also attempt to negate myself. I bring up this subject here, in the muddle of EndDays, because we, as a society, seem lately to be suffering from an increasingly serious bout of historically low self-Esteem. We seem to have fallen into a habit of reviling ourselves. Not without good and decent reasons, mind you, for as a society we have been recently behaving absolutely horribly. I hear you when you insist that it wasn’t you that started any of this, but I also sense, as I sense within myself, that we’re both deeply influenced by the misbehaviors trickling inexorably down from the top: our presidency.

Our incumbent seems to be a one-man low self-Esteem machine. He spews off venom like a teething rattlesnake, slobbering poison twenty-four seven. He seems to carry an unquenchable thirst. He lusts after seemingly everything yet finds no satisfaction when he successfully defiles any or even all of it. He seems to experience his greatest successes as if they were his greatest failures. Perhaps they were. He loses when he wins and insists that he wins whenever he loses. I’m no psychologist, but do I have to be one to recognize the patterns common to those who’ve never learned how to hold themselves in anything approaching high esteem? These poor souls pursue mammon as if it were the Holy Grail, and defile anything holy with which they might come into contact. He seems to spend untold hours sitting atop his throne, but cannot seem to find reason to hold himself in high Esteem. Perhaps his shit doesn’t stink to him, or it stinks more than he can readily forgive.

Beware those pursuing greatness, for the cost of such pursuits tends toward the onerous. Who could afford to mortgage their sole originating asset to chase after what only others can grant? The hollowness that search insists upon pretty much guarantees an ultimately discouraging result, encouraging an ever-increasing lowering of self-Esteem. I have no advice for anyone, even myself, trapped in the whirlpool of greatness. Those who chase it either learn better or they learn worse. It’s ultimately a curse, never really worth pursuing. I was once proud of my association with my country. I held both in high Esteem. Now I struggle to mount my throne without experiencing anything other than the overwhelming stench of someone chasing greatness.

©2026 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #EndDays, #PureSchmaltz