e·go·tis·ti·cal
–adjective
1. pertaining to or characterized by egotism.*
2. given to talking about oneself; vain; boastful; opinionated.
3. indifferent to the well-being of others; selfish.

*e·go·tism
-noun
1. The tendency to speak or write of oneself excessively and boastfully.

I hate it when dictionary definitions are circular. So I provided the definition of “egotism” too, for completeness.

Basically, in order to be classified as “egotistical” you have to talk about yourself, be opinionated, be boastful, and be selfish.

This whole blog is centered around me. I’m a priest. To be more specific, I’m a healery priest. I have pictures of my character in the header and on the sidebar. I want you to know that this is MY blog. My articles are about ME and what I have learned about priesting.

I am boastful. My group and I have done some pretty amazing things.

I am opinionated, and I am stubborn. If you’ve managed to find one of my “buttons” – one of those topics that you can express your opinion on and I will doggedly ignore you, then you probably already know that.

I am indifferent to the well-being of others. I am selfish. Someone who doesn’t want to take the time to learn or attempt to help themselves will get ignored by me. I’m not going to punish them (that’s sort of the opposite of “indifference”), but I really don’t care what they do. I’m concerned about me and my circle of friends. I will expand that circle so that I am also helpful to people who give a damn – who are trying, and who are looking for help, not handouts.

Thing is….so are you guys.

You have to be. You HAVE to be.

I don’t know at what point the word “egotistical” became an insult. It’s only an insult if your self-assurance is WRONG. If you’re all puffed up with self-importance and you haven’t earned it.

In my Storytime post, you guys proved to me that you’re boastful. Hell, you have every right to be. The stories that you told in those comments are worth boasting about!

So boast! Why be ashamed to say “Hey, I did this, and it was AMAZING!!” ?

When did we become so guilty, so apologetic of our accomplishments? Because it might hurt someone’s feelings? Whose? The people who haven’t done it? The people I care about will take that as a challenge, will see it as a goal, something to look up to.

You guys love to write about yourselves. You’ve proven it with your comments. And guess what, I love reading about you. I LOVE it when you comment and tell me a story about your awesome tank, or the time you did something you never thought you could. Just because you like to talk about yourself doesn’t mean you don’t like to read about other people too — otherwise you wouldn’t be here.

You guys are opinionated. Yesterday’s post was about how much I love my Nostromo…and I’d say a little under half my comments were people saying, “that’s nice, but I prefer my Fang.”

What, you don’t just swallow what I say without thinking about it?

Of course not! You aren’t mindless drones, you’re people! You’re intelligent people who have formed your own opinions on things, and you’re not going to toss them aside just because someone with a *gasp* BLOG says you should.

Good on you.

You’re selfish. You’re selfish in the same way that I am. If that wasn’t true, I’d have been publicly flamed for my Entitlement Rant instead of being praised and linked, my webstats reaching an epic spike in traffic.

Being selfish doesn’t mean that you are rude or uncaring to other people. It simply means that you have enough backbone to see that THEIR selfishness isn’t special and beautiful. Everyone is selfish, from the smallest hungry squalling baby to the beloved grandma knitting sweaters for the homeless.

When did these things become an insult? When did we lose our pride in ourselves? When did it become such a horrible thing to excel at something and recognize your own skill?

Yes, there are drawbacks to being egotistical. You set yourself up on that pedestal and people will come looking for you, doing their best to knock you back down.

And you don’t want to be up there if you don’t deserve to be, that’s not “egoism” – that’s false pride, that’s hubris. You don’t want to cross that line, forget what it was like back when you first realized that cloth only drops from humanoids.

When I call you guys my “Egotistical Readers” – that’s not an insult. That’s a compliment. I have constantly been amazed at the quality of comments that I receive. You guys, combined, know more than me by a FAR sight. That’s why I took last week to incorporate your comments into my blog entries. That’s why I try so hard to give you guys quality advice, to write articles that you’ll find interesting and useful.

Because even though I’d write this blog even if none of you were here, the fact that you ARE here is what makes this blog special. What sets it apart and makes it more than just a random hobby. I get to be the Egotistical Priest because of seniority. I was here first. You guys earned the right to be Egotistical Readers.

Be proud, be loud, be egotistical.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 5th, 2007 and is filed under Soapbox, ~ Vonya. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.